Mask rules are easing in California. Will they be required inside schools in the fall?

Mask mandates are rapidly changing, leaving many parents wondering what school policies will look like in the fall for their children.

State Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said California will effectively end its mask mandate on June 15, when the state plans to fully reopen. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has already provided guidance saying vaccinated people shouldn’t be required to wear masks in most indoor situations. The CDC is expected to announce updated guidance for schools in the coming weeks.

The California Department of Public Health has not announced a change in guidance, but in a statement to The Sacramento Bee on Monday, CDPH officials said that there will be corresponding changes to the K-12 guidance for the upcoming school year. Public health officials in Sacramento County said they are currently awaiting updates and changes from the state. Ghaly said the wait to change California rules is not because the state disagrees with the new recommendations, but rather an effort to give “time to prepare and think through the implementation” of new state guidance.

“Until we have that, we do not have any changes locally to our mandate,” Sacramento County Public Health spokeswoman Janna Haynes said. “Until that happens, we are not prepared to speak on how that impacts any particular sector.”

Ghaly also said Monday individual counties can choose to continue their local mask mandates beyond mid-June.

Neither Sacramento County nor any of its five neighbors making up the capital region — El Dorado, Placer, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba — have their own local mask order currently in effect, all deferring to the state’s mandate.

But county officials added that individual organizations and sectors, like schools, will always “have the latitude to create their own policies”

Some major U.S. retail chains lifted their mask requirements days after CDC’s announcement, except in stores located in states and jurisdictions where health orders continue to make them mandatory. Target and CVS were among the latest to lift their company-wide mandates, announcing the change Monday.

Dave Gordon, chief superintendent of schools in Sacramento County, told The Sacramento Bee that the only thing officials know for sure is the guidelines continuously change.

Some parents leery of mask change

Melissa Brown, a parent in West Sacramento, said if schools relax mask guidelines, her two boys will continue wearing them this coming school year.

Brown, who is undergoing treatment for a rare, incurable blood cancer called myeloma, took strong precautions to protect her family from COVID-19. Her 12-year-old son Evan received his COVID-19 vaccine once the FDA authorized emergency approval; he is one of the few on his baseball team that remains masked on the field.

“I know they said we can be around vaccinated people, but we don’t know who is and who isn’t,” Brown said. “At our house, we are still being very safe but I don’t know what other families are doing.”

Brown said her two boys, ages 12 and 8, have adapted to wearing masks on campus since they have returned to in-person learning four days a week in Washington Unified. She said her family hopes they are able to return full-time to school in the fall.

“We see it more as taking care of each other than seeing it as someone telling us what to do,” she said.

But not all parents want the state to keep the mask mandates for K-12 schools.

Other parents want masks gone

In Placer County, Informed Parents of California organized a rally outside of the Placer County Office of Education on Monday calling for officials to lift the mandate.

Parents in the group mobilized to keep their children home from school across a state, in hopes to send a message to education officials that they oppose the current mask mandates on campuses.

Jessica Stonehocker, a mother of three children in Rocklin, said she hopes masks will be optional in the fall.

“Children are very low risk for COVID-19, and as a parent, I can’t help but be concerned about the effects of wearing masks for another year,” she said.

Her oldest will be in fourth grade in the fall, and another child will start kindergarten.

“I don’t believe children wearing masks for six-and-a-half hours a day, five days a week, is physically or mentally healthy,” Stonehocker said. “My daughter tells me that it is hard for her to concentrate at school with her mask on. She says that it is difficult to breathe, has to constantly pull it up, she gets really hot, and complains of headaches. She tells me that the mask affects her sight because when the mask is pulled up over her nose, it pushes up under her eyes. She also says that it can be hard to understand what the teachers and other students are saying.”

Rocklin Unified School District announced to parents that while the federal CDC update is encouraging, the district is legally required to implement state guidance. Until the CDPH releases new guidance, the masks will stay on in schools. Placer County Office of Education officials confirmed the mask requirement will be set by CDPH.

This story was originally published May 24, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Mask rules are easing in California. Will they be required inside schools in the fall?."