The Merrimack Valley School Board has scheduled an emergency meeting to revisit its mask policy for fall in light of new recommendations from state health officials.
In the meeting, which is set for Aug. 23, board members will address some “contradictory” language about masks in the reopening plan and consider new mask recommendations from New Hampshire DHHS, according to the meeting notice posted on the district website.
“The purpose of that meeting is to lend further clarity to the Stay Open Framework that the school board voted on at the last meeting,” Merrimack Valley superintendent Mark MacLean said Thursday. “And, in light of the DHHS recommendations that were released after the school board meeting via the School and Childcare Toolkit, to really create our local interpretation of what those suggestions and recommendations from the DHHS are.”
Earlier this month, the Merrimack Valley School Board voted 8-2 to adopt the reopening plan, known as the “Stay Open Framework,” which states that the district will “follow New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services recommendations in regard to the use of masks on school property.” At the time, the latest word from the DHHS was that local districts should make their own policies. The majority of school board members who voted for the framework said they wanted masks to be optional.
Two days later, on Aug. 11, DHHS issued a new recommendation that districts require universal masking whenever schools or their surrounding counties reach “substantial” levels of COVID transmission. Currently, all of New Hampshire has a “substantial” designation. These new recommendations have led several nearby districts to start the year with universal masking, including Henniker and John Stark. Other districts, like Weare, have opted not to follow the DHHS recommendation and to implement optional masking instead.
Some wording in Merrimack Valley’s stay open framework has led to confusion among parents and school officials, particularly two lines about the mask mandate that seem to conflict. After the line stating that the district “will follow” DHHS recommendations, the next line states that students and adults “will have the option of wearing masks regardless of the NH DHHS.”
MacLean said when he drafted the framework back in May, that second line was intended to mean that people could continue to wear masks even if it wasn’t required. But with the context of new DHHS recommendations, MacLean said he hopes school board members will find a way to clarify the wording.
“Regardless of what the intent was back in May when that was written, it’s not necessarily applicable right now because the context has changed,” MacLean said. “We didn’t know in May what August was going to look like, and we don’t know in August what October is going to look like.”
The school board will meet at 7 p.m. Monday in the Merrimack Valley High School gymnasium. A public comment period is on the agenda.
“As school administrators in various schools and in various towns, we need consistency and clarity so that we can implement these strategies,” MacLean said. “When they are left as vague, it is very hard to implement those at any sort of level.”