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John Clary stood before Clark County School District trustees and top administrators, a blue KN-95 mask covering his nose and mouth, to tell the officials what he thought about the district’s decision to lift its mask mandate for students and faculty.
The Clark High School student said the choice was misguided — and more.
“I feel it shows a lot of selfishness, and the fact that people want to live consequences-free lifestyles, and they want to appease the new wave of anti-science thinking,” he said at the Thursday night meeting.
Earlier that day when Gov. Steve Sisolak announced an immediate end to the state’s mask mandate, citing a downward trend in coronavirus cases, he gave businesses and school districts the power to make their own mask rules.
CCSD promptly announced that it would follow suit and lift the mask mandate. Students and staff now only must wear masks on buses, as buses fall under a continuing federal mandate. In classrooms and anywhere else on district property, masks are left to individual choice.
CCSD is the fifth-largest school district in the country with 300,000 students, and currently is the largest district with a completely mask-optional policy.
Sisolak said he wanted students to sit down with their parents and “in consultation with their families, decide what’s best for them.”
Most pediatricians say masking is what’s best, and on Friday many children still donned a mask. Same with educators. Others went without a facial covering.
Dr. Pam Greenspon, immediate past president of the Nevada chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the physicians’ group maintains its stance supporting masking in schools, along with vaccinations for kids 5 and older. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention takes the same position.
“We’re still getting kids coming in every single day” with COVID, Greenspon said.
Dr. David Di John, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and professor at UNLV’s Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine, also recommends children keep wearing masks at school, where they gather all day in close quarters.
“I tend to be cautious on these matters,” he said.
Children are still vulnerable to the virus, and a “disturbingly low number” of kids have been vaccinated against COVID, Di John said.
About 151,000 Nevada children between age 5-17, mostly living in Clark County, have been fully vaccinated, according to state health department data. The 5-11 age group, which became eligible for the shot in November, has a 15% vaccination rate.
Meanwhile, school-aged youths made up a moderately larger share of Clark County’s infections during January’s omicron surge, according to Southern Nevada Health District data. Infections in kids between 5 and 17 climbed by 37% during the month, while overall infections grew by 27%.
Sisolak’s announcement follows moves by several other states with Democratic governors to lift mask mandates, including New York, California and Illinois. They all left the mandate in place for schools, however.
New York City has the largest public school system in the nation, followed by Los Angeles and Chicago. Miami-Dade County in Florida, the fourth-largest, requires masks for employees but not students.
CCSD’s turnabout on masks comes less than a month after the district expanded its Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday in response to “extreme staffing shortages” caused by COVID-19 cases.
Student Gianna Archuleta reminded district leaders of that Thursday when she said that almost half of her teachers were out just a couple of weeks ago.
“I don’t want to go back online,” she said. “I want to be supported by my school district. I want to be in-person and I want to make sure that I feel safe enough to be able to go to school, and I feel that we need to consider student voices.”