GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. — Guilford County Schools’ Board of Education voted Tuesday night to continue the mask mandate with a 6-3 vote.
The current policy requires students and staff members to wear a face-covering while inside a school building or in any other school-related setting.
Several board members expressed their concerns over continuing the mask mandate while others opposed it. "I'm hoping this board will step up. These masks don't protect you from it," Board of Education member Linda Welborn said. "These pieces of cloth do no good. I'm asking this board to please give consideration to the children."
Other board members said teachers have reached out to them asking BOE members to keep masks. "At the end of the day, we can't send a child to an empty room," BOE member Deborah Napper expressed. "I don't know how it would work to pull down our mask mandate when theirs (county) stands."
Board members enacted the policy in July. The school district is required to revisit the mask policy monthly to decide whether it should be modified or lifted, according to the law that was passed in August.
School leaders will vote on the policy again next month.
Changing the mask rules means changing quarantine rules, which is something the school board can't control.
That rule says schools must quarantine unmasked students who are exposed.
To this point, GCS hasn't had to do that.
There's also still a countywide mask mandate in effect, which supersedes whatever schools decide. County Commissioners meet next Thursday to vote on that.