Why Liberal Suburbs Are Facing A New Round of School Mask Wars

David Fleishman, superintendent of schools in Newton, Mass., an affluent Boston suburb, said he had recently received a message from a parent pushing him to end the mask requirement in classrooms.

But first, he said, the individual felt the need to reassure himself that “I am not a Trump supporter.”

While Newton, like most of Massachusetts, is mostly liberal and Democrat, “there is tension,” said Mr. Fleishman, when it comes to masks.

The battle over mask powers may be shifting towards liberal-leaning communities that have largely agreed on the need for masking and are constrained by statewide mask requirements.

Now that Massachusetts will lift its school mask mandate on February 28, join other liberal states Like New Jersey and Connecticut, it will be up to individual school districts like Newton and nearby Boston to decide whether and how quickly they want to revoke their own mask rules.

But a well-organized chorus of public health and child development experts, as well as parent activists, say masking can harm children academically and socially, and is calling for a return to normalcy.

Newton and Boston, about 10 miles apart, provide an insight into how two politically liberal and cautious districts approached the election, and how and why they might make different decisions. The discussion will include science as well as politics, race and class, as well as a range of sentiments.

Some see masking as a powerful health tool and symbol of progressive values. Others have come to see covering their faces as an unfortunate social barrier between their children and the world. And many people are somewhere in between.

In Newton, 65 percent of elementary school students, 79 percent of middle school students, and 88 percent of high school students are vaccinated by county. The district is 61 percent white, and 14 percent of students qualify for free or discounted lunch.

Some prominent leaders in the community say they are ready to relax restrictions.

In Boston with the highest vaccination rates slightly lower – significantly For Black and Hispanic children – who make up most of the district – the public school district says it has no plans to end the mask mandate.

Neither do some of the city’s charter schools.

David Steefel-Moore, director of operations for the MATCH charter school network, said he had not heard “negative feedback” about masking from parents who were overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic. “There’s the other side of it: ‘My kid told me there was a kid in his class with a mask around his neck. What are you doing about it?”

For Boston students who live with a grandparent or family member with underlying health problems, the end of mandatory masking could put children and teens in an uncomfortable position of having to choose between their family’s sense of security and school compliance, he said. Gayl Crump Swaby is a Boston Public Schools parent and counseling professor specializing in trauma issues for families of color.

“They don’t have to make those kinds of decisions; they are young,” he said.

Some parents may even prefer online schooling to classes with unmasked peers and teachers, he added.

At Newton, one of the foremost voices in the masking debate, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and a guardian of students in the area, Dr. It is Ashish Jha. She serves on the area’s medical advisory group and has been an outspoken advocate for unmasking children as Omicron retreated.

The group will meet this month to form a recommendation on masking for the school elected committee that will make the final decision.

Dr. Jha does not believe that her own children have been seriously harmed by masking, and she does not believe the pandemic is over.

But given that he thinks future coronavirus surges in the US will likely require re-masking, he says he wants to unmask it soon, in part to offer social and academic normalcy — potentially in the South and North over the summer this fall and the following winter.

He argued that with new therapeutics to treat Covid-19, masking is little good in areas with relatively high vaccination rates and falling infections, such as the Boston area this spring.

“If not now, when?” He asked. “Because I don’t foresee a time in the next few years that will necessarily be that good.”

Vulnerable teachers and students saidPeople can stay safe by wearing high-quality masks, even when those around them are not covered. Throughout the pandemic, he drew attention to the transmission of viruses in schools. angryincluding some places mask not required.

However, Dr. Jha’s advice is not necessarily reassuring for educators who have seen the guidelines change frequently over the past two years.

In many left-leaning areas, virus safety plans have been painstakingly negotiated between teachers’ unions and districts, and rolling back can be complicated.

“The information about the virus is changing, variants are changing, facts are changing, it’s really frustrating,” said Jessica Tang, president of the Boston Teachers’ Union.

Teacher unions have been among the strongest supporters of masking in recent weeks, pressing for their members and students to have access to medical-grade masks and respirators such as N95, KN95, KF94 and surgical masks. But individual teachers disagree on how important masks are and how they affect students.

Suzanne Szwarcewicz, a teacher in Newton who learns English in elementary school, said the masks present challenges for young children who speak languages ​​like Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hebrew and Spanish.

Last school year, Ms. Szwarcewicz tried teaching English with a mask with a clear plastic faceplate so students could see the shapes her lips and tongue made while pronouncing. But when those masks quickly hydrated and became uncomfortable, she gave up. She now uses videos to demonstrate proper pronunciation, and sometimes she briefly unmasks herself while standing a few feet away from students.

Ms. Szwarcewicz said students will be comfortable taking off their masks and will feel safe knowing that her mask provides protection. Still, he said he would gladly march in support of his colleagues if his union voted to protest any loosening of masking rules.

Mike Zilles, president of the Newton Teachers Association, noted that there may indeed be resistance if the school committee chooses to volunteer masking. He argued that the state and territory had recently streamlined virus testing, contact tracing and quarantine procedures at the school, leaving masks as an important remaining defense.

Pandemic feelings of burnout are common among teachers.

“We were thrown out there, asked to risk our lives, and no one really accepted that,” Mr. Zilles said. “We were guinea pigs.”

Dr. Jha acknowledged that academic work is unlikely to affect those who fear unmasked students, but said he expects consensus to grow over time as students in neighboring areas cover their faces before the outbreak.

“People need to get to a point where they’re emotionally and mentally comfortable with that,” he said. “If the kids are all masked for the next two years, that’s a problem. I’m going to push back pretty hard. But if they’re masked in the next month or two, that’s fine.”