School Committee and DESE Mask Update 10/12/21

Thank you for your ongoing support and interest regarding the important issues facing our school community.   

Despite our ongoing efforts to achieve educational “normalcy”, the mandatory mask requirement in all Massachusetts public schools remains an elephant in the room.  Many of our community members are passionate about this issue from multiple perspectives.  We have been taking a great deal of feedback into consideration on how to approach this issue as a district, and we continue to reach out to the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) regarding our options as a local community.  We continue to take feedback via our Feedback Forum that is regularly viewed by the School Committee and district administration.

As of this moment, we have no additional information from DESE about the current mask mandate beyond their last advisory at the end of September.  All of the most recent information we have is accessible on the Fall Opening tab on our website.  We have been evaluating and monitoring the vaccination rate of students and staff at HHS to determine if we are at – or close – to the 80% vaccination rate required for DESE to consider optional masking for vaccinated individuals in that school.  The current vaccination rate at HHS (students and staff) is in the low 60% range.  The School Committee and district administration have serious concerns about any future protocol that would segregate students by vaccination status, and we will not advocate for any unmasking strategy that would negatively identify or discipline unvaccinated students and staff.

The School Committee and administration continue to take this issue very seriously, and we understand its importance to many people, especially our students.  We also need to focus our time and resources on moving forward with the ordinary business of our district to help our students learn and grow academically and socially.  We have operational, budgetary, and other policy-related business that requires our full attention.  In order to keep the lines of communication open with our community on issues related to masks in school, and to move forward with the other important business of the district, we are planning to organize our School Committee meeting tomorrow night to allow for the first hour (7:00 PM to 8:00 PM) to address the mask mandate.  The remainder of the meeting (8:00 PM until adjournment) will be focused on district goals for the year.  We appreciate your understanding as we maintain our commitment to working on the issues related to the current mask mandate while balancing the need to move forward with the important work ahead of us to best support our students.  

Sincerely,

Leah Miller, School Committee Chairperson
Matt Ferron, Superintendent