Final Semester for Mask Mandate?

Door County school superintendents want to know when they might be able to lift requirements for students to wear facial coverings.

In the Sturgeon Bay schools, for example, Superintendent Dan Tjernagel has repeatedly asked health officials to provide a “metric” – a statistical guideline or benchmark – that would allow him to lift a school-day and school-bus masking mandate. He said he has “no real metric” to date.

“The board will continue to monitor – especially local – data trends, like what our numbers are and what’s happening at the local hospital,” Tjernagel said, “as well as taking into account when [elementary-age children] are eligible for the vaccine.”

During an informal school board “learning session” early this month, Tjernagel told board members that the easing of mask mandates would depend partly on when the United States allows vaccination of children ages 11 and younger. Tjernagel said some reports put that vaccine eligibility around Halloween, and some by mid-November.

The Food and Drug Administration plans to meet as soon as Oct. 26 to consider approving coronavirus vaccines for children ages 5-11, upon request from Pfizer and BioTech.

In addition, Tjernagel anticipates a lag of weeks or months after that before the district could lift its requirements for students to wear masks in school. Families may take some time to decide whether their children will have the vaccine, and then they have waiting periods between the doses.

“By the time you add eight weeks to that, it’s probably January,” Tjernagel said. 

The district currently requires all students, visitors and personnel to wear masks during school hours and on the bus. Tjernagel said high school students would likely go back to masks-optional status before elementary kids, though nothing is set in stone.