The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday released an updated COVID-19 guidance toolkit for public schools.
In-person learning and keeping children and staff in schools while decreasing risk of transmission of COVID-19 is the priority for these new guidelines.
One of the most significant updates the agency recommended involved how students handle COVID-19 exposure saying, “Individual contact tracing and exclusion from school of asymptomatic people after an identified exposure is no longer recommended statewide in K-12 schools.”
That means, effective on Monday, Feb. 21, students exposed to COVID-19 who don’t show any symptoms will be allowed to stay in the classroom.
It was not the change one of the state’s top republicans had asked for.
House Speaker Tim Moore wrote a letter to the governor Thursday, calling on his administration to change Department of Health and Human Services guidelines that the speaker said “have all but compelled local schools to keep their mask mandates in place.”
The toolkit still recommends that districts in high areas of COVID-19 spread have a universal masking rule in place for everyone older than two, and that schools can consider moving to mask optional when COVID-19 spread is defined as moderate or low by the CDC.
“I’m pleased and hopeful that we can get back to normal lives with the understanding that we’re all going to need to do things to make sure that we protect ourselves, dependent upon the risk,” Cooper said.
Cooper’s comments came during a Thursday morning visit to a childcare center in Goldsboro.
Governor Cooper specifically said with COVID-19 numbers falling, the state would be reviewing its mask guidance for schools.
But the new rules sent the same message: mask up in class.
Philip Hackley has two twin boys in first grade in Wake County schools.
“I’m excited about the idea of them being able to go to school without masks. I think it is to some extent limiting,” said Hackley.
He says after two years of pandemic rules, he’s ready for the day when they can learn without masks, but only if experts say the time is right.
“Our general position is that we don’t want our family to get sick and we don’t want to see anybody else get sick,” said Hackley. “As long as that’s what the science is telling us to do we’re happy to do it.”
Public school masking requirements are decided system-by-system, but DHHS guidelines recommend them in areas with higher COVID spread. According to the N.C. School Boards Association, as of Feb. 4 most systems required masks. Twenty-eight, the association said, were mask optional.
Johnston and Cumberland county schools recently voted to make masks optional, a change that goes into effect later this month.