‘We wanted to keep kids in school.’ Philipsburg-Osceola extends mask mandate indefinitely

After temporarily putting a masking requirement in place, Philipsburg-Osceola Area School District’s mandate will continue until transmission of COVID-19 cases and other illnesses decreases.

The requirement, which started Jan. 10, was originally only for two weeks but the district recently extended it with no planned date to return to optional masking.

Under the policy, all students and faculty members must mask up when indoors.

“We’re doing the best we can to keep kids in school,” Superintendent Gregg Paladina said Monday. “I’m not going to apologize for that. We’re going to continue to mask until the transmissions go down and then we’ll revisit.”

The district implemented the mandate after seeing a rapid increase of not only COVID-19 cases but also seasonal flu and the common cold. Masking was an effort to mitigate the spread and keep the district from returning to virtual learning.

“We were getting close to that threshold of 5% where we would have to consider going virtual and we wanted to keep kids in school,” Paladina said.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education recommends that schools move to virtual learning for two weeks if 5% of students or staff test positive in a 14-day period.

“There are a lot of positive cases and the critics of the masking say that it’s ineffective and it doesn’t work,” Paladina said. “But we had to do something and this was what we chose to do.”

The district has ordered KN95 masks to provide to students and staff, which will arrive in the next week, Paladina said. KN95 masks provide better protection from viruses, including COVID-19 and the flu.

The district joins State College Area School District, which is the only other district in Centre County to require masks be worn inside district buildings.

This story was originally published January 24, 2022 at 2:50 PM.