Most MS Coast school district now require COVID masks. 3 districts remain unchanged.
Ocean Springs became the latest Mississippi Coast school district to require face coverings on Tuesday evening, following most other Coast districts in rushing to impose mask requirements just ahead of the first day of school.
The school board voted 3-2 to require masks when students return to school on Wednesday. The board will revisit the mandate at their next meeting, and it will be evaluated on a weekly basis with data on COVID-19’s spread.
Before the vote, Superintendent Dr. Bonita Coleman made a presentation to the board to explain her request that they vote to require masks for all students, staff and visitors.
When the district approved its protocols in July, including to make masks optional, COVID-19 cases in the area were low, she said.
“Now, however, things have dramatically changed especially in terms of our community over the past four weeks,” she said.
She showed a chart comparing the number of COVID-19 positive students and staff just ahead of the start of school in 2020 to the same figures today.
Last year, three students reported they were positive. This year, the figure was 27. Last year, three students had a household member dealing with COVID-19. This year, that figure was 49.
Last year, five staff members tested positive for COVID-19 just before school started. As of Tuesday, 11 staff were positive, Coleman said.
Board member Kaycee Waters spoke first. Vulnerable people have had the opportunity to get vaccinated, she said, and young children are at little risk.
“It’s not a pleasant thing,” she said of mask wearing. “I don’t agree that we put our children in masks. I don’t think that’s right. If the parent wants their child to wear a mask, they can send their child to school with a mask.”
Board member Eric G. Camp said his thinking on masks had evolved, and that elementary school-age children should be protected from COVID-19.
“Is your stance motivated by political rhetoric and self-centeredness, or by an actual evaluation of reality, of what’s happening?” he said in a speech supporting the mask mandate.
Waters and Brad Patano voted against the mandate, while Camp, Jim Smith and Joe Cloyd voted in favor.
“We’re just doing masks because it’s the in vogue thing to do,” Patano said during the discussion.
The board also voted to allow staff with a household member who has tested positive for COVID-19 to return to work, provided they have no symptoms and wear a mask.
Before the end of last week, almost every district on the Coast planned to make masks optional unless Gov. Tate Reeves reinstated the mask mandate he ordered last year. Reeves has said repeatedly he has no plans to do that.
But cases are surging across the state as the Delta variant spreads and the state’s vaccination rate remains low.
Ahead of the first day of school last year, the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases was just over 1,100. For the last nine days that the health department has reported cases, the figure has been well above that, averaging 1,492 cases per day.
In Harrison County, five people died of COVID-19 from July 29 to Aug. 2, more than the three people who died from the virus in the entire month of June.
Moss Point School District has planned since May to require masks at schools.
On Thursday, Pascagoula-Gautier became the first Coast district to switch from recommending masks to requiring them. Gulfport and Pass Christian followed on Friday. On Monday, Biloxi, Hancock County and Long Beach schools announced a mask mandate.
Bay-Waveland, Harrison County and Jackson County are now the only school districts on the Coast where masks will be optional.
Here’s the full list of mask policies at each district on the Coast:
- Bay-Waveland: Optional
- Biloxi: Required
- Gulfport: Required
- Hancock County: Required
- Harrison County: Optional
- Jackson County: Optional
- Long Beach: Required
- Moss Point: Required
- Ocean Springs: Required
- Pascagoula-Gautier: Required
- Pass Christian: Required
