San Mateo County Community College District eases mask policy

In a 3-2 vote, trustees backed a masking policy change that would allow students and faculty to go maskless when indoors if the county is placed in the CDC’s green tier on its transmission rate dashboard.

Despite the change being a loosening of the rules, the district’s policy is still one of the strictest in the area. In March, the state and most public agencies adopted a CDC recommendation to allow masks to be optional aside from more high-risk areas like public transit and medical and congregate settings.

A majority of the county’s kindergarten through 12th grade school districts also adopted the policy shift but the community college district retained its mask mandate, which employees had sought to keep in place.

Given the high spread of COVID-19 currently, a masking requirement will remain in place until infection rates drop substantially, under the district’s new policy which takes effect July 1 ahead of the summer semester.

More than 10,000 San Mateo County residents have tested positive for the virus in the past 30 days and 41 people are seeking care in hospitals across the county, according to the county’s COVID-19 dashboards. And about eight new cases are being reported for every 100,000 residents per day, according to the CDC’s dashboard which places the county in the medium yellow tier.

It’s that high spread that gave some trustees pause when considering the policy change. Trustee John Pimentel kept his comments brief, stating he was not in favor of the change. Meanwhile, Trustee Maurice Goodman urged his colleagues to keep in mind that many students and staff may be immunocompromised or have relatives at home who are at high risk of serious illness if they contract the virus.

“We’re not wearing masks for ourselves for the most part. We’re wearing them for those who can’t wear masks. We’re wearing them for the immunocompromised. We have to keep that in mind,” Goodman said.

Some district staff also argued against reducing the mask mandate to a recommendation. Marianne Kaletzky, the executive secretary of the teachers’ union, said a survey of 160 district educators showed more than 54% of respondents were not comfortable with changing the policy. She also shared concerns with the district’s outreach before recommending the policy change given that officials had previously promised to engage stakeholders before making any recommendations.

Alternatively, Claire said the district conducted its own survey and found that 54% of the 559 employees were comfortable with the change and about 11% were indifferent. And about 60% of the 2,083 students who responded to the survey said they were in support of a mask optional policy while 27% were indifferent.

Pimentel, Goodman and board Vice President Lisa Petrides successfully quashed a staff recommendation to align fully with the state by immediately making masks optional regardless of transmission level.

Board President Richard Holober and Trustee Tom Nuris sided with staff and arguments in favor of following the guidance of health experts but ultimately struck a compromise with Petrides but keeping the mandate in place until rates dropped.

Still, Nuris shared doubt the district’s mask policy was doing much to protect those who enter their campuses given that most end up leaving classrooms and entering other spaces like grocery stores where masking is not required.

“To say that we’re protecting everyone during that limited time that they’re here is really not an accurate expression of what reality is because we all go out after we leave if we’re in a classroom here,” Nuris said. “I don’t think we’re protecting people to the extent that we say we are because we can’t protect them.”

sierra@smdailyjournal.com

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