VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. – The Volusia County School Board is set to discuss its mask requirement Tuesday and how long it would be in effect. Board members are expected to have a workshop where they will talk about possibly ending the mandate.
Encouraged by the number of people projected to be eligible for the vaccine soon, school board member Carl Persis brought the mask mandate up for debate recently, wondering if it could become optional.
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“It wouldn’t be in my thinking that students could not wear masks. If parents want their child to wear a mask then that’s fine,” he said.
Persis said policy changes take weeks to go through so there’s a chance it could be changed before the end of the 2020-2021 school year and before summer school, but the conversation is really geared toward next school year.
At Tuesday’s workshop, the Volusia County Health Department will bring its recommendations to the school board.
Board member Ruben Colon said they were supposed to revisit the policy in January but decided against it.
“I don’t anticipate the recommendations of the health department to be to remove the mask policy,” he said.
The health department is sticking with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for all its recommendations. Spokesperson Ethan Johnson said those guidelines change frequently.
“It’s difficult for us to prepare what to do for Fourth of July for example because the guidance that’s going to be in July doesn’t exist right now,” he said.
According to the district and county, thousands of teachers have been vaccinated already.
“We still have people who have been vaccinated but may still be carriers for the virus and may still infect others,“ said Johnson.
No decisions will be made in the workshop tomorrow. Persis said policy changes can take close to six weeks to go through.
“We’ve got to have the conversation started of what do we want our schools, our classrooms to look like as we move forward,” he said.