Pittsfield Superintendent Takes No Position on School Mask Mandate Lift
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Superintendent Joseph Curtis says the school district has "no position" on its masking policy following Gov. Charlie Baker’s announcement that the school mask mandate will be lifted on Feb. 28.
On Wednesday, Curtis told the School Committee that he will look to them for consideration and if nothing is brought forward, he will make a final decision.
"As you can imagine, the superintendents had no notice of this announcement, besides around an hour and a half, so we found out about this, the mask policy not being extended past Feb. 28," he said. "We found out at 9:30 a.m. and the governor released his statement soon thereafter."
"So since the governor's release of statements, I've received numerous media inquiries about what my position or our position will be, parent emails and such, and so we will I will certainly look to the chair in the next coming days, if the school committee desires to make a policy amendment, then that would have to be done, if the school committee does not desire then I will make a decision moving forward."
Wednesday morning, Baker announced that the mask mandate would not be extended in late February. In its place, there will be guidance for mask-specific scenarios and they will still be required on buses.
He cited a low risk for young people, widespread availability of vaccines, testing, and the need to give kids a sense of normalcy.
The state is currently at 79 percent of residents being fully vaccinated; in the Berkshires, 76 percent of those age 5 and older are fully vaccinated.
Curtis pointed out that the mandate is set to end the day that students return from February break and in the past, there have been consistent spikes after school vacations.
He spoke to the varying opinions of the virus's severity, reminding school committees and the public that it still causes staff absences that can lead to entire schools being closed.
Taconic High School and Reid Middle School were forced to close for two days in early January due to staffing shortages.
"Certainly there's a lot of debate about the virus, the impact, the severity, some are incredibly concerned about the virus, others refer to it as nothing more than a cold, I don't get into those debates and this position, but what I can express to the community and certainly the committee is that no matter how you feel about the virus, it does have impact and you saw that impact after our recent December and January vacation, where because of staff cases after the vacation, we had to close the Taconic and read Middle School," Curtis said.
"And so whether the debate might be that the current virus and its variant causes severe illness or not, if one catches the virus they do have to quarantine and those guidelines are still in effect, quarantining causes staff absences and student absences if we reach a point where we cannot run the school safely as we did with Taconic and Reid despite our best efforts and certainly tried to rearrange staff to come up with alternative plans, we did reach a point where we could not do it and that's something that's in my thoughts in the deciding whether to affirm the Feb. 28 mass mandate lift or not."
Curtis said that there has to be thoughtful consideration before changing the mask policy. He reminded the committee that masks will still be required on school buses and nurses' offices even when they aren’t in schools per federal order.
Curtis last amended the policy in May 2021 based on metrics and state and local guidelines. It was made to stipulate that the superintendent could amend the policy following guidance from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education or other governing bodies.
"At that time, all considerations were being discussed and really ending the use of masks permanently. That was before the delta variant and the omicron variant."
In August, a universal mask mandate was reinstituted. At the time, there were about 16.6 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people and the positivity rate was 3.2.
There are currently 110.2 cases per 100,000 and the positivity rate is 9.9.
Student representative William Garrity said he was surprised by the decision and wished there had been more input from stakeholders and students.
In other news, the committee approved a new contract with the United Educators of Pittsfield for 2021-2024 which includes an additional professional day and the tutoring rate raised to $35 an hour.
Garrity also provided an update on the Taconic mascot change. In August 2020, the committee voted to change the mascot to a more culturally acceptable option.
The mascot committee has narrowed down the choices from ten to three after sending out a community survey. The contenders will move to the final round: Taconic Rockets, Taconic Thunder or Taconic Titans.
Tags: COVID-19, masks,
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