Masks will be optional for nearly everyone in the Stafford County Public Schools system Thursday, February 24, even school bus drivers.
The county School Board on Tuesday, February 22, voted 5 to 3 to remove a masking requirement for teachers, school building staff, bus drivers, and children on buses. The move follows a vote earlier this month that gave parents the option to remove masks before Gov. Glenn Youngkin same new legislation giving parents mask choice.
Employees who work inside school buildings were allowed to remove masks today, Wednesday, February 23, while bus drivers may remove them tomorrow. Teachers and children in the county’s head start program — a federally funded venture — must continue to wear masks.
“We’ve been talking about this for about a month. Of the hundreds of emails we’ve received from parents asking about masking children, we’ve also received hundreds saying ‘if you’re going to let children take off the masks, please let me take mine off, too,'” said School Board Board Chair, Rockhill District representative Patricia Healy.
“It would be phenomenal for our kids to see their bus driver smiling in the morning because it’s really hard to see the bus driver and for them to communicate with the kids through a mask,” said Hartwood District representative Alyssa Halstead.
Dr. Sarah Chase of Falmouth, Dr. Elizabeth Warner of Griffis-Widewater, and Maya Guy, of Aquia, voted against the motion, arguing to keep masks.
“We need more time for public input. We need to wait for more information and see the effects of [the school division] going mask optional,” said Warner.
Chase asked for the delay for bus drivers. Halstead, who motioned the School Board for mask choice for teachers, drivers, and children on school buses, accepted the friendly amendment to her motion.
According to an email obtained by Potomac Local News from Jennifer L. Rose, with the
Virginia Department of Labor and Industry, “the Virginia Safety and Health Codes Board adopted a proposed finding that there is no longer a continued need for the Virginia Standard for Infectious Disease Prevention of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus that Causes COVID-19, 16VAC25-220, based on emerging scientific and medical evidence that the current widespread variants of the virus no longer constitute a grave danger to employees in the workplace…”
Meanwhile, in Manassas, the city School Board on Tuesday voted to keep masking requirements for teachers and staff in school buildings and to continue to force children and drivers to wear masks on school buses,
School children in the city no longer need to wear masks inside school buildings.
