Masks will be required at least until Feb. 14, said school officials, when the board will re-visit the issue after evaluating the district’s data on student and staff infections and quarantines near that date.
City school leaders said recent surveys of school parents and staffers regarding the extension and their favorable responses led to the school board’s decision.
“My (mask extension) recommendation for our district is right in line with what our staff and community are saying,” said Middletown Superintendent Marlon Styles Jr.
“That (mask) protocol is helping us a lot … and helping to keep our schools open,” said Styles, prior to the board’s approval of his recommendation.
Board member Michelle Novak said “I like the idea to extend it and re-visit it again in February.”
Middletown and many other area school systems returned to mandatory masking since the start classes earlier this month as the Omicron variation of the virus continued to surge in the area.
Fellow member Anita Scheibert said “it seems like this is the easiest solution.”
Scheibert said relatively quick surge and then drop in Omicron infection rates elsewhere bodes well for the district’s latest extension of masks being a temporary one.
“Wearing the masks for a couple of more weeks might be prudent,” she said.
According to the school system’s surveys, 70 percent of the district’s 524 employees who responded said they wanted the mask requirement extended while 57 percent of the 1,206 school parents who responded favored such action.
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