Masking Made Optional: An update on how SMSD and other schools in the area are handling masks in school

Although Johnson County still requires masks, local schools have lifted their own mandate, including Bishop Miege and St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas hasn’t required the use of masks for the entirety of the year and Miege decided to make masks optional on Sept. 20. 

At the beginning of August, SMSD decided to follow Johnson County’s mask mandate and required masks for the school year to limit exposure while still allowing in-person learning.

According to East’s nurse Stephanie Ptacek, transmission of the COVID- 19 virus in the community is still high enough in enclosed areas with large amounts of people like a school building, so masks are still highly recommended by the US Federal Drug Administration. 

“The real question is, if there’s no mask, is there no school?” Ptacek said. “If we want to keep being able to do all of the things we are doing, we have to do them with masks.” 

The decision isn’t up to East, since it’s decided by the entire district administration. Even if East is to have herd immunity, the district won’t lift masks from an individual school until the whole district is given the signal to do so. 

“I will say that we have tested a lot of kids in the past few weeks to a month,” Ptacek said. “We have sent a lot of them home for symptoms, but they have all tested negative, which is pretty reassuring.” 

While most East students wear their masks according to guidelines, some students have been excused from wearing a mask in school if they have a doctor’s note.

East student *Catherine Simpson received a note from her doctor excusing her from wearing her mask due to the fact that she can’t breathe when she is wearing it. 

“My doctor finds it more important to my mental health that I’m staying focused in school,” Simpson said. “I can’t get anything done when I constantly feel like I can’t breathe.”

They have to take a note to Ptacek that gives them a legitimate excuse for not wearing a mask in school, such as anxiety and depression inflicted from the mask. But even if it is approved by the nurse, a teacher in a specific classroom still has to approve the notion. 

“Obviously I understand if there are medical issues that require you not to wear a mask,” East teacher Carolyn Bossoung said. “But, I personally feel the most comfortable wearing a mask and would wear one even if it wasn’t required.” 

East principal Jason Peres is in full support of the guidelines the district enforces on East. His outlook on the best way to keep students safe and in school is by upholding the mandate. 

Peres is still trying to implement school spirit at East, but plans to do so accordingly and safe. That starts with pep rallies. Instead of having the recommended “grade meeting” in a gymnasium, they are conducting pep rallies outside. 

“We have to improvise on getting the whole school together,” Peres said. “There is no mandate outside, by having the pep rally on the field we are doing the same things in a safer way.” 

The high school level is not using contact tracing, or at least not at the level that they previously were. Last year, students were assigned seats for the year and when a student tested positive, the students who had sat nearby would have to quarantine as well. 

This year, if a certain classroom sparks notice in having a higher number of cases, the health department can send home an entire class. 

“Since all students had the opportunity to have been vaccinated, we expect that most of them have,” Ptacek said. “If there was an outbreak, there would be much more hesitation to send the entire school home.” 

While East is a part of a district, schools like Meige and Aquinas are both Catholic private schools, meaning that they have more free will to make their own decisions when it comes to guidelines on mandates. If East were to make masks optional anytime soon, then it would have to be enforced in all district schools. 

“I don’t think that masks will be lifted at school until the elementary level can get the vaccine,” Ptacek said. “The little kids are still getting sick and the district can’t risk that.”