Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - More than three-dozen school superintendents in Western New York signed off on a letter sent to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday by the Erie-Niagara School Superintendents Association, looking for an end to the mandatory masking of kids in schools.
As part of the letter, ENSSA recognized the current masking order for schools in the state is scheduled to end on Feb. 21, 2022. The superintendents asked the Governor in the letter to provide advance notice of this to students and staff in order to prepare for "a post-crisis period of time when we have the opportunity to exercise discretion about mask use in schools on our own behalf."
Related
"We were glad to find that in the order, as it was put into the New York State register, it expires on Feb. 21. I don't think that date is very widely known, and we wanted to put that out there," said President of the Erie-Niagara School Superintendents Association, Michael Cornell of the mask mandate on Thursday. "That kind of comes on the heels, within the context of some of the Governor's public comments about getting the school experience for kids back to normal, which includes lifting the mask mandates. The purpose of the letter was to acknowledge that she seems to listen, and essentially just say we agree, let it expire."
Cornell says he has been appreciative of the Governor's efforts throughout this time to respond to the requests of schools all across the state, and that the state has been quick to respond to provide any additional information for schools.
Gov. Hochul has been quite adamant since her time in office about keeping kids in school and making sure their time is not being taken away from quality time being educated in the classroom.
When it comes to the mask mandate expiring on Feb. 21, Cornell said he wanted to recognize the Governor's decision and make it known that schools across the area agree with the expiration of the mandate.
"I think public officials like the Governor take on a lot of fire when people disagree, and we also thought it was important for us to, on the record, publicly recognize an area of agreement that we have with the Governor and appreciate the fact that she seems responsive," Cornell said. "I think she also understands, for what it's worth, that school age populations have experienced the mildest symptoms related to the COVID disease itself, but they've suffered, by far, the most disruption. She's said, words to the effect of 'it's time to move beyond the emergency phase to a time when the presence of the virus no longer completely upends the lives of our kids.'"
"I think it's time to start having that conversation," said Dr. Stephen Turkovich, Chief Medical Officer at Oishei Children’s Hospital of the mask mandates in schools on Thursday. "One of the most important pieces is going to be around the availability of the medications to prevent severe COVID. Based around what we know right now and where the numbers are going, if those medications become much more widely available, I do think it's reasonable to start to have that conversation."
A couple of other factors are helping push schools in the state to urge the Governor to let the mask mandate expire. One has been the data gathered from neighboring and other states across the country, who have not implemented mask mandates in schools.
While Cornell understands the schools are not medical experts and don't have any final say on what the state decides, he knows the data gathered can help towards the decisions made for the state with regards to the mask mandate.
"We've had some conversations locally. I had the opportunity to sit with the Governor's Secretary for Education in December, and we made the point: You can look at two neighboring states. - Pennsylvania and Ohio - who have not had mask mandates across the state at all this year. 38 out of 50 states don't have statewide mask mandates. Most of the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries around the world don't have them. So we've done our best to kind of paint the picture of the context within which we continue to do this," Cornell said.
"We want to stay in our lane. We're teachers, educators in the light. We're not public health experts by any stretch, but what we try to do is bring to bear in the conversation that we have with those who do ultimately have the authority to make decisions. The fact that there is a context out there, which gives us some insight into what would happen if we didn't have a mask mandate."
The other factor that plays in to schools urging to let the mask mandate expire is the success of "test-to-stay" programs that have developed for districts across the state.
"There's a reason why we advocated for it since the summer," Cornell said. "We have very, very, very few students, if any, who are unnecessarily quarantined. It's been great and provided, again, another step along the path of normalizing the school experience for young people and for families."
You can listen to the entire conversation on Thursday with Cornell below: