Masks will be optional in the State College Area School District starting Monday

State College Area School District board held a work session Thursday discussing the end of the mask mandate and changes to the health and safety plan.

In a letter sent to parents Thursday, the district announced it plans to end its mask requirement starting Monday.

Superintendent Bob O’Donnell wrote that the district made the decision after Centre County’s community spread level was moved to low.

March 28 was the original date the district had planned to end the mask requirement, detailed in a COVID mitigation easement plan the district released in February. SCASD will be the last district in Centre County to drop the mask requirement in schools and on district transportation.

Families are able to fill out a form requesting that their child be encouraged by faculty and staff to wear a mask after the mandate is lifted.

So far, more than 200 families have made that request, Jeanne Knouse, director of student services, said during Thursday’s meeting. The district is putting in place measures to make sure bullying doesn’t occur around students who choose to still wear masks, she said.

Some board members voiced concerns about recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studies that show an uptick of levels of COVID in wastewater and an increase of cases in Europe.

Matt Ferrari, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Penn State, said it “would be prudent” to expect more cases in the following months but it may not be as bad as previous waves.

“The timing of that, relative to the large omicron wave we just had is likely to mean that any increase is going to be slower and it’ll be occurring at a time where more people are going outdoors so that will also hopefully help mitigate things.”

Board president Amber Concepcion asked about the risks for children under five who have not been vaccinated and could contract COVID from older siblings.

“Kids overall fare much better with COVID than adults, I don’t think we would be at a pandemic level at all if it was just about the complication rates and mortality in the pediatric age group in COVID,” said Joy Drass, Geisinger’s medical director for pediatrics.

The health and safety team said easing mitigation does increase risk but medical and testing advancements have made the community much more prepared if cases start to rise.

“We’re in a really different place than we were March 16, 2020,” Drass said. “There are now some good effective treatment options for people who test positive for COVID, there’s vaccines that have lessened severity of illness.”

The district will continue to monitor COVID cases and asks that positive cases still be reported by families and staff.

“If we identify transmission concerns within schools, or if our community returns to the high level, we would consider reinstituting mitigation protocols, including masking at levels ranging from classrooms to districtwide,” O’Donnell wrote in the letter to families.

Social distancing will still be in place in classrooms and the lunchroom but teachers can now rearrange desks and classroom furniture. Surgical masks will still be available for all students.

The district also released a new isolation and quarantine guide for close contacts and positive COVID tests that will go into effect on Monday.

This story was originally published March 17, 2022 at 10:33 AM.