This week, the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review (AELR) voted to continue the State’s masking policy for public school facilities, and added new off-ramps for local education agencies, with the vote ultimately being 11-5 in favor of approving the regulations.
These regulations immediately went into effect following the vote.
The emergency regulations stipulate off-ramps for locals via three main pathways:
- At the individual school-level, for which a school would have to reach 85% of staff and students to be vaccinated;
- At the jurisdiction-level, for which the county would have to reach 80% or above vaccination, at which time the county board of education could move to lift masks in schools; and
- Based on transmission rates: should a jurisdiction not meet requirements for vaccination, but transmission data shows the county is at a low-risk, the county superintendent could move to lift masks.
The regulations have a 180 day cap, at which time, or before, the Board and MSDE can revisit them based on evolving COVID data.
The new set of regulations will replace the previous policy, passed and adopted in September that requires masks to be worn in all public school facilities, with no local exceptions or off-ramps.
As long as we don’t test people for antibodies, we’ll never know the real numbers of who can’t get the roof. PCR false positives and exposure to the roof ten minutes after the test makes that test a useless waste of time and money.
Let’s go, Brandon!
The school’s need to stay open or our economy will crash.