Manatee district to review mask policy as FL education commissioner ups pressure for change

As they face outside pressure from local and state officials, Manatee County school board members will soon review their district-wide mask policy.

Charlie Kennedy, the board chair, said he planned to hold a policy discussion in late April, satisfying a requirement that board members review their mask mandate at least every 90 days. The board last reviewed its policy and chose to continue the mandate on Feb. 9.

In a follow-up statement, he said board members could decide on April 27 whether to advertise that changes may be coming to their policy. The board could then hold a next-steps discussion on April 30, followed by a final vote on the changes, if there are any, at the May 25 meeting.

While the upcoming review was already planned, the controversial topic gained new life after Florida’s education commissioner, Richard Corcoran, called on school boards to make face coverings optional in the upcoming 2021-22 school year.

“Face coverings are a personal decision and certainly families and individuals should maintain their ability to make a decision that is unique to their circumstances,” Corcoran said in a memo on Wednesday. “Broad sweeping mandatory face covering policies serve no remaining good at this point in our schools.”

Kennedy described the memo as “political theater” during an interview on Thursday afternoon. More than 37% of Manatee County’s population received at least one vaccine dose, a trend that may continue through the summer and eliminate the need for mask mandates by August, when the new school year begins, he said.

The need for such a policy was dwindling and the commissioner, Kennedy said, was taking advantage of the positive momentum to “score political points.”

It was unclear whether the board majority would support ending or continuing the policy in late April. Vice-Chair James Golden could not be reached for comment on Thursday, nor could board member Gina Messenger, who has long favored voluntary masking over strict mandates.

Kennedy said he preferred to continue the mask mandate through this school year, which ends in late May, and to promptly end the policy after students leave for the summer, assuming the pandemic continues to lose its footing.

“The better we are with our mitigation techniques, the quicker we’re going to have our masks off,” he said. “We’re just about to pull into the driveway. Don’t take your seat belt off because we’re almost home.”

Scott Hopes, a school board member and epidemiologist, urged similar caution during an interview on Thursday evening.

“I’m hopeful that we can safely accommodate that,” he said of Corcoran’s request. “We’ll see how the vaccination runs through the summer and where we are with cases. The problem will be that parents who want to protect their child with a mask are going to have to use the right type of mask. If you don’t have everyone wearing a mask, then a student needs an N95-quality mask.”

There was much to consider before the upcoming school year and the current semester was no time to ease safety measures, he continued.

Hopes said he wanted to see a higher vaccination rate throughout the county, especially among local youth and school employees. He also hoped to see lower positivity rates among those who take a COVID-19 test.

There were also several unknowns: How long do the vaccines protect against COVID-19? Will they shield students, educators and their families for a whole semester? And what if new coronavirus variants gain traction?

“The mask-wearing in school is to minimize the spread of the virus within the school community — and that is working,” Hopes said. “And remember, hardly any children are vaccinated.”

“I’m all for giving people choice,” he continued. “But we are in a position to protect the majority of students and employees.”

Along with Corcoran’s recent memo, Hopes — who recently took up a second job as the acting county government administrator — also faced recent pressure from Manatee Commissioner James Satcher, one of his new bosses at the county. Satcher addressed the board on Tuesday.

Despite a rule that all visitors wear a face covering during school board meetings, Satcher approached the microphone with a mask sagging below his mouth. He urged the school board to “unmask our children” in local schools.

“I’m not here as a commissioner at all,” he said. “I’m just here as a dad and a husband. As a dad, I’ve had the experience of waking up in the morning and I’ve got my 5-year-old and she’s crying over these masks.”

Satcher pointed to the growing number of vaccinated residents and the shrinking risk that students would become sick and endanger their elderly or high-risk family members.

Corcoran, the state’s education commissioner, echoed that message in his memo.

“Right now, our schools are safer than the communities at large,” Corcoran wrote. “This safety record should only increase next school year with the increased availability of vaccines. With this return, we ask that districts, which currently are implementing a mandated face covering policy, revise their policy to be voluntary for the 2021-2022 school year.”

As of Thursday evening, the school district recorded 545 COVID-19 cases and more than 7,000 exposures in the current semester. An exposure means someone was in proximity to a sick student or employee for at least 15 minutes.

And throughout the entire county, the Florida Department of Health recorded 36,505 cases and 646 deaths since the pandemic began, according to the agency’s report on Thursday.

Public health officials have urged the use of face coverings for most of the pandemic, especially before the roll-out of several COVID-19 vaccines. But policies on mandatory masking have led to heated debates among residents in Manatee County and throughout Florida.

That discussion was not made easier by Corcoran’s recent memo, board member Mary Foreman said on Thursday.

“We have relied on the CDC and the local health department on what to do,” she said. “Now we have someone in authority in the Department of Education that’s coming in and giving us their own directive or request. I think that puts the board in a difficult position.”

This story was originally published April 15, 2021 at 2:56 PM.