PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Philadelphia School District has said students or staff who refuse to wear masks would be sent home, but the superintendent said he was unaware of the month-old sanction ever being imposed.
Over the winter break, the district announced a crackdown, saying anyone in school who wouldn't wear a mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19 would be sent home.
Asked about such enforcement at a news conference on Thursday, Superintendent William Hite said he wasn't aware of any students or staffers in the last month who were forced to go home because they wouldn't mask up.
"I don't know the number of individuals, if any, [who] have been sent home as a result of that," he said. "But I do, and have seen, while I've been in schools since we have returned, that there is a lot more compliance around mask-wearing than prior to the break."
Hite said the district was not compiling information on mask mandate violators.
"That's not a number we're tracking," he added. "We were using it as, quite frankly, leverage. While principals have the ability to send individuals home who just flat refuse to wear masks … we're not collecting that information."
