School districts are rushing to update their COVID-19 policies in time for the school year after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines for limiting the spread of the disease, two and half years after it first emerged.
The updated guidelines, which almost entirely eliminate mask recommendations and treat vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals largely the same, have put increased scrutiny on school districts that continue to maintain strict COVID-19 rules, including mask and vaccine mandates, as students return to class and such policies linger for a third consecutive school year.
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The persistence of COVID-19 restrictions in schools is mostly limited to a handful of big city districts with notable Democratic-leaning politics, most notably Washington, D.C., San Diego, Newark, and Philadelphia, even as the spread of the virus continues to recede from the public consciousness.
The most eye-popping restrictions apply to students ages 12 and over attending any school in D.C., including private schools. Per the city council, all students in that age group must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to attend class. The requirement is among the strictest in the country and does not currently include a mask mandate. The D.C. public school students must also submit a negative COVID-19 test prior to attending the first day of class on Aug. 29.
The enforced vaccine mandate is an anomaly among school districts. Numerous other jurisdictions have announced plans for similar mandates but ultimately delayed or abandoned implementing such a requirement. This included California, where a statewide vaccination mandate has been delayed at least until July 2023.
Elsewhere, while the vast majority of school districts nationwide have eliminated mask mandates, students in a handful of districts will be required to wear a mask as the 2022-2023 school year begins.
Last month, officials in San Diego Unified School District reinstated a mask mandate for all indoor settings, citing an increase in coronavirus cases in the area. The district has not yet issued an update on the policy, which went into effect on July 18. Classes begin in the Southern California district on Aug. 29.
Pittsburgh and Newark public schools have kept mask mandates in place since the spring and have not announced plans to remove their mandates despite the new CDC guidelines. School officials in the D.C. suburb of Prince George’s County, Maryland, reinstated a mask mandate for students last week.
In Philadelphia, the school district announced last week that students must wear masks for only the first 10 days of classes, after which masks will be optional.
The disjointed and inconsistent endurance of COVID-19 mandates drew harsh criticism from Ian Prior, the executive director of the political action committee Fight for Schools and a senior adviser at America First Legal.
Prior noted that “plenty of schools” across the country were operating safely without vaccine or mask mandates, but the districts keeping mandates and other policies in place were “irreparably harm[ing] children by denying them a normal educational experience.”
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“It’s downright appalling that public schools in the District of Columbia would force parents to choose between giving their children an experimental vaccine of limited effectiveness and ensuring that their children get an education,” he said. “Meanwhile, continued mask mandates in Philadelphia and San Diego show that these school districts are not following the science, but rather are relying on arbitrary masking rules that have no demonstrable impact in preventing the spread of COVID.”
