Local school districts mask mandates have been lifted for months
Courtesy of Dr. Jason Hutchinson
Students are returning to classrooms across the region.
Lammay
Travelers and commuters were surprised Monday to learn masks are no longer required on public transit, after a Florida judge struck down the national transportation mandate.
For many local school districts, though, a lifted mask mandate is old news.
“When the regulation was lifted for school buses, we lifted it as well,” said George Lammay, superintendent for Washington School District. “We went mask-optional in all facilities and all buses. It’s been a little bit now.”
Nearly two months, to be exact.
When the Centers for Disease Control lifted school bus mask mandates Feb. 25 of this year, districts like Washington and Albert Gallatin Area School District moved to make onboard masking optional.
“We kind of eased into it,” said Dr. Jason Hutchinson, director of transportation at Albert Gallatin. “The mask kind of came off in the school, then in transportation. We left it up to the child and the driver. We’ve been – knock on wood – so far, so good.”
Things are so far, so good in Charleroi, too, where Charleroi School District’s Director of Transportation Terri Crampo said regulations were lifted per CDC guidelines two months ago.
Crampo said face masks are available on all buses, should a rider need one. She also noted students aren’t the only ones taking precautions on rides to and from school.
“Several of our drivers wear masks,” said Crampo. “The Charleroi district provided a … pureAir Solo Personal Air Purifier. We purchased one for every one of our drivers when COVID first came about. Some still wear them and some don’t. It’s up to them.”
Also optional, but available to both Charleroi drivers and students, is hand sanitizer, located near the door on every district bus.
Sanitizer and masks may be optional, but cleaning is not.
“We’re still cleaning the buses daily,” said Hutchinson. “After the run, they’ll come in and wipe it down. If we’re alerted to a positive case, then we try to pull that bus so that it doesn’t go back out. Spray it down, wipe it down, do the deep cleaning piece of it.”
Crampo said her drivers wipe seats with disinfectant and have access to canned air spray. She noted cleanliness is a priority at her garage.
“If we have a day off and the drivers still have to report, the buses all get mopped with disinfectant,” she said.
Districts are looking forward to finishing the year with mask-optional policies, and hoping for a return to normalcy next school year.
Lammay said Washington School District will follow the guidance given, and would reinstitute mask mandates if instructed. But he hopes next year is as mask-optional as possible.
“We want to do what’s good for kids and staff. I personally enjoy seeing the kids faces and talking with the kids,” he said. “Either option is accepted and supported.”
Crampo is less optimistic.
“I really don’t believe this will ever go away,” she said. “I think we’ll probably always have some sort of issue. Preventative maintenance is, I think, the best thing.”
And Hutchinson falls somewhere in between.
“I think at all schools, it’s day-to-day. You have to learn to be flexible and adapt at a moment’s notice,” he said. “We learned some things through it. We’re getting to some normalcy, if we can get through the summer months. We want to get back to some sort of normal routine.”