Sedgwick County dumps mask mandate for schools; Wichita USD 259 to stay masked up
Sedgwick County commissioners overruled their health officer Tuesday and dropped the county’s COVID-19 mask mandate for public and private schools.
But the bulk of the county’s educational system, the 47,000-student Wichita USD 259, will still require masks for students and staff for the foreseeable future, a spokeswoman said.
On a 3-2 vote, commissioners decided to leave the decision on whether to require masks in schools up to the individual school boards or private-school management.
Commissioners Pete Meitzner, David Dennis and Jim Howell voted to override the recommendation of the county health officer, Dr. Garold Minns. Commissioners Sarah Lopez and Lacey Cruse opposed the motion.
Shortly after the vote, USD 259 announced it will be continuing its policy of requiring masks, said district spokeswoman Susan Arensman. The district’s mask mandate is incorporated into a board policy already, she said.
There’s no immediate plan to bring the issue back to the school board for reconsideration, although one or more members could bring it up at a board meeting, Arensman said. The board’s next scheduled meeting is April 4.
On the commission, Dennis led the charge to change the decision-making process, arguing that school boards are closer to the situation and better equipped to make the decision for their students.
On Monday, Minns dropped crowd limitations from his ongoing health orders, but kept the requirements that people continue to use masks and practice social distancing until April 30.
Early in Tuesday’s meeting, Minns advocated that the county should keep its mask mandate until “herd immunity” is achieved. That’s the point at which coronavirus outbreaks can’t spread very far because so much of the community is either vaccinated or has acquired immunity by being infected with COVID-19 and surviving it.
Minns said the national Centers for Disease Control estimates herd immunity will be achieved when 80% of the population has immunity to COVID. Sedgwick County currently stands at roughly 25%.
“(This is) not the time to just give up,” Minns said. “The majority of our population is not immune.”
During the meeting, Dennis said he got a message from the Renwick school district that 100% of its staff had been offered vaccination and that 60% had accepted the shots.
He said that indicates Minns’ goal of 80% immunity is not a realistic target for removing the mask mandate for schools.
“I don’t know how we’re going to get there or if we’re ever going to get there,” he said.
Lopez argued that there’s value to keeping the mask mandate for schools because without a countywide policy, part-time volunteer school board members would become political targets for anti-mask activists who have been pushing county government to drop it ever since it began.
“That’s really putting pressure on all the districts to not follow the science,” she said.
Lopez also said that the commission is the county’s Board of Health and should make health decisions for the whole county, not pass them down to lower levels of government that don’t have the same access to information about the pandemic.
Howell also tried to get the commission to shorten the duration of Minns’ remaining mask order and have it end April 9. Commissioners voted that down 3-2 with Meitzner joining Cruse and Lopez.
This story was originally published March 16, 2021 at 12:26 PM.
