Opinion
Maryland county school CEO suggests students will be required to wear masks until ‘COVID no longer exists’
The chief of a Maryland county college district indicated that college students can be required to put on masks on college grounds and in lecture rooms till “COVID now not exists.”
“I’ve not been interested by a maskless classroom,” Prince George’s County Public Colleges’ CEO Monica Goldson stated in Capitol Heights, WTOP reported. “The one classroom I’ve been interested by is one the place instructing and studying takes locations from the time the youngsters stroll in till the time they depart.”
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“The one off-ramp I would like is the one the place COVID now not exists,” Goldson stated. “I don’t assume that that off-ramp will exist. I feel that is how our life can be … and we’re displaying that we’re adaptable and we are able to make no matter mandatory adjustments in order that we are able to maintain our college students studying and protected.”
College students within the county returned to the classroom for the primary time this yr on Jan. 18. The varsity district abruptly determined in December to return to digital studying for the primary two weeks of January because of the omicron variant.
Goldson made her place on masks clear, regardless of acknowledging successes within the college district’s testing initiative and elevated vaccination charges amongst college students.
Kids put on masks and watch for President Biden to go to their pre-kindergarten class at East Finish Elementary Faculty to spotlight the early childhood schooling proposal in his Construct Again Higher infrastructure agenda in North Plainfield, New Jersey, on Oct. 25, 2021.
(REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)
Dad and mom for the county’s some 110,000 college students enrolled in in-person lessons can be required to add check outcomes for his or her kids each Sunday till no less than the top of February. Final week was the primary time that college students had been despatched residence with antigen speedy exams over the weekend with directions for his or her mother and father to manage the exams Sunday, earlier than sending youngsters again to highschool Monday morning.
“As we speak was the primary day the place college students and oldsters had been again in colleges after using” their exams, Goldson stated Monday. “We had over 85,000 exams uploaded into our database and just some college students who examined constructive. So so far as I’m involved, that’s constructive, as a result of I by no means need these sick youngsters round different college students and proceed to contaminate them.”
In response to the county well being division, about 30% of scholars ages 5 to 9, and about two-thirds of scholars ages 10 and older, have acquired no less than one spherical of the vaccine. Greater than 94% of the county inhabitants age 12 and older have acquired no less than one vaccination shot.
Prince George’s County Government Angela Alsobrooks additionally helps preserving the masks mandate for now.
A toddler wears a face masks on the primary day of New York Metropolis colleges amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Brooklyn, New York, on Sept. 13, 2021.
(REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Picture)
“The masks have been our greatest approach of preserving all of us protected, and till and until we hear in any other case from our well being professionals, we’re going to proceed to remain the course,” Alsobrooks stated. “We’ll see what the science says, and we’ll comply with it, and if the science says in some unspecified time in the future it’s protected for us to take away the masks we’ll do this, however in any other case, we’re in no hurry to do something that jeopardizes the well being of our college students.”
Challenges to pupil masks mandates are gaining fervor across the nation.
In New York, a Lengthy Island choose just lately dominated in opposition to the statewide masks mandate Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul tried to carry again in December amid a surge in omicron circumstances.
However New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams shortly stated that masks would nonetheless in required in public colleges within the Large Apple. By Wednesday, an appellate choose granted a keep within the state’s lawsuit, that means colleges should nonetheless implement the masks mandate through the appeals course of.
In Virginia, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, issuing an government order on the identical day he was inaugurated on Jan. 15, banned college masks mandates and made masks carrying elective in lecture rooms in his push for elevated parental rights. The identical day the order went into impact Monday, college boards in seven counties filed a lawsuit pushing again in opposition to the order.
