State College adjusts its mask policy for the new school year. Here’s what to know

State College Area School District is updating its health and safety plan to ease COVID-19 policies for the upcoming school year.

Under the new plan unveiled at the Monday night board meeting, masking will not be required, regardless of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Community Level. That’s in contrast to the 2021-22 school year, during which masks were required indoors districtwide through March. The plan also required masks indoors if the county moved into the CDC’s high level, which happened briefly in late May.

Community levels take into account both case counts and stress on the health care system, and Centre County has been in the low level since early June.

Effective Aug. 15, wearing masks indoors and outdoors will be optional in low and medium community levels. If the CDC moves Centre County to a high community level, masks indoors will be highly recommended but not required.

A districtwide mandate will only go into effect if local governments start enforcing a mask mandate. If only some local governments reinstate mask mandates, the health and safety team would monitor cases in schools and decide whether or not to require masks.

Masks could be required at smaller levels such as school, grade or classroom if three or more connected COVID cases occur, according to the plan.

Any students, faculty or staff will still be required to stay home if exhibiting any symptoms and self-monitor. Nurses will continue to contact trace cases and send home students with symptoms.

For high-risk individuals, the district will follow the mitigation easement plans families made in April when the district first lifted its mandatory masking restrictions. In these plans, high-risk students can have the adults around them wear masks during the day.

The district will still offer the elementary virtual academy and is in the process of hiring additional teachers for the district’s virtual school for students grades 6-12, interim superintendent Curtis Johnson said Monday.

The health and safety team plans on meeting less frequently this term, quarterly rather than weekly, but the team is not going anywhere, he said.

“This is something we’re always going to have,” Johnson said. “It might not be the pandemic but there might be other situations or scenarios that we might need a health and safety team to come and help us make a decision.”

Other districts have also been in the process of updating their health and safety plans and are planning to return with optional masking.

Bellefonte Area school board approved their safety plan at its July 12 meeting, removing a section about providing vaccine clinics for staff. Superintendent Tammie Burnaford said the section was now unnecessary but would not remove the possibility of hosting vaccine clinics in the future. Burnaford said Bellefonte Area schools would continue the safety policies in place this spring, including optional masking.