San Mateo Union mask mandate stays

In a 4-1 vote, trustees agreed to keep the district’s mask mandate in place until June 1, striking a compromise with district staff who were asking for the policy change to take effect Monday, May 9.

The district was one of the few in the county to not shift to strongly recommending masks when indoors in March after the California Department of Public Health changed its guidance and is now one of two districts to still mandate them. San Bruno Park School District trustees voted to keep their mandate in place while Burlingame and South San Francisco school districts aligned with the state shortly after students returned from spring break.

Superintendent Kevin Skelly advocated for the district to make the shift now by arguing that while COVID-19 cases have been ticking up recently, they are far lower than they were a month ago and other districts have done well after removing their mandates. Skelly also said the constant conversation with the board on the matter was taking valuable staff time that could be used for other initiatives.

“The question at least to me is not if you start following the guidelines set forth by the county but when you do that because over time I don’t think it’s a good use of staff time or frankly a new superintendent who comes in to have this discussion every board meeting,” Skelly said.

Public comments on whether or not to lift the mandate have been mixed with some arguing that face coverings have disrupted a student’s quality of education — an argument Skelly shared — and others expressing health concerns and fears of missing out on end-of-year activities.

Trustees largely agreed the decision was a difficult one and ultimately decided to hold off on aligning with the state decision until students got through the remainder of the school year. Once the shift is made, trustees supported a staff recommendation to remain in lockstep with the state and county on future guidelines.

“I want to really emphasize that strongly recommend is not masks optional. Strongly recommend means people ought to be wearing masks. That’s what strongly recommend means and people need to be respectful of the situation they’re in,” board President Peter Hanley said. “You do not want to get COVID if you can avoid it.”

Trustee Ligia Andrade Zúñiga was the lone vote against the decision after she shared concerns that an uptick of cases could put underserved families at greater risk, as well as students attending summer school who Skelly said also tend to come from low-income households.

“We are not all in the same situation where we can isolate or we can just quarantine. It’s not just that simple. Our district is not that cookie-cutter,” Andrade Zúñiga said.

Andrade Zúñiga and other trustees also argued that masks proved to be a valuable tool after a COVID-19 outbreak occurred after San Mateo High School’s prom in early April which did not require masks while an outbreak was not reported after Aragon High School’s mask-mandatory prom on the same day.

Since that outbreak where about 90 students contracted the virus, safety protocols have been beefed up for following proms including requiring students to provide a negative test before the event regardless of vaccination status.

A third staff recommendation to end a policy requiring unvaccinated students who participate in extracurricular activities like sports to be tested weekly did not move forward after trustees said they would vote against it.

“I think unvaccinated students present a real and serious danger to the school district and to the members of the staff, to the other students,” Hanley said. “It’s only a matter of time before unvaccinated students are infected and I can’t support removing that policy.”

sierra@smdailyjournal.com

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