Posted on 12/07/21
| News Source: WBAL
In a 12-1 decision, the State Board of Education voted to allow individual school systems to lift mask mandate under certain conditions.
Those conditions are either an individual school has at least 80% of its students and staff fully vaccinated, a school's home county has 80% of residents fully vaccinated, or a school's home county's transmission rate falls to moderate or low for at least 14 days.
There was a passionate plea from state school Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury to board members to sign off on an emergency masking regulation that puts limits on school districts on when they could lift mask mandates.
"I want to keep schools open at the end of the day, and that's very important to me. Vote your conscience. For me, selfishly, it's about keeping schools open," Choudhury said.
The regulation would require the vaccination rate in a county or the city to be at least 80%. That number would also apply to students and staff members in a particular school. It would then allow superintendents to lift face-covering mandates if the county has sustained 14 days of moderate or low transmission rates.
All but one state board member voted in favor of the masking regulation in a 12-1 vote, saying one size does not fit all.
"I am for immunizations, but there are some people who are not. There are just some segments of our society who feel they've been harmed in the past and they're not really clear," said Warner Sumpter, a member of the Maryland State Board of Education.
Kevin Bokoum, the student member of the Maryland State Board of Education, said he expects the masking proposal will have a snowball effect.
"I think they're going to react very positively. We see with the 80% vaccination for schools, it can create encouragement within schools and school communities to get vaccinated and spread to their parents," Bokoum said.