Area suburban school districts no longer require masks. Wichita plans to revisit mandate
As the Wichita school board prepares to re-evaluate its mask requirement Thursday, many suburban school districts in and around Sedgwick County have already made masking voluntary.
Maize, Goddard, Valley Center, Andover, Derby and Haysville all currently do not have mask mandates.
The largest district in Kansas, Wichita USD 259, has required all students, staff and visitors to wear face coverings since August 2021.
Three newly elected board members, Diane Albert, Kathy Bond, and Hazel Stabler, tried overturning Wichita’s mask requirement on Feb. 7 but lost out in a 4-3 vote.
The trio called a special meeting for Thursday to again re-evaluate COVID-19 protocols as the most recent virus surge appears to be abating.
During the peak of a January COVID spike, as many as 1 in 10 Wichita students were in quarantine. Record rates of infection in teachers and staff have forced elementary, middle and high schools across the district to close for days at a time.
According to the district’s most recent data, 299 students were quarantining on Feb. 10, down from a record 4,889 before the district stopped contact tracing in mid-January.
School districts across the nation are considering dropping their mask mandates as COVID cases fall.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas announced this week that he does not plan to extend that city’s mask mandate for schools, set to expire Thursday.
Other Kansas City area districts also have ended mask mandates, including the Blue Valley and Shawnee Mission districts in Johnson County.
The Wichita school board will meet at noon in the Alvin E. Morris Administrative Center Media Room. Board meetings are shown live on Cox Cable Channel 20 and online at WPS-TV.
Contributing: Sarah Ritter of the Kansas City Star.
This story was originally published February 16, 2022 at 1:45 PM.