The superintendent of Virginia’s largest school system said in a message to families Friday that parents and guardians can choose for their children to go maskless in schools and on buses beginning March 1.
Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Brabrand wrote that there wouldn’t be a formal opt-out process for students who choose not to wear masks. Face coverings are still required when participating in the county’s test-to-stay program and when returning to school on day six of a 10-day quarantine.
Brabrand’s announcement makes the school system the latest to announce plans to comply with a recently passed state law enabling parents to decide if their kids wear masks to school. Prince William and Loudoun County schools have already dropped their mask requirements, and Arlington and Alexandria announced plans for optional masking beginning March 1.
All adults, including staff and visitors, are still required to wear masks, Brabrand said.
“As a school division, we continue to be concerned about the health of our Fairfax community and strongly recommend that all students continue to participate in universal masking for the protection of students and staff with health concerns,” Brabrand wrote. “As we work through this change, we will honor our value of a caring culture.”
The county had previously announced plans to make masks optional once community transmission, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fell into the moderate transmission range. As of Friday, before the CDC updated its guidelines, the county was listed as experiencing substantial community transmission, according to CDC data.
Fairfax County was also one of seven Virginia school systems that sued Gov. Glenn Youngkin to stop his executive order making masks in schools optional, questioning the order’s constitutionality.
On Thursday, the 12-member school board voted to authorize the county’s legal counsel “to file an amicus brief in the pending federal case challenging Executive Order No. 2 and SB 739,” the masking and in-person learning legislation.
Under new CDC guidelines, released Friday, people, including schoolchildren, should wear masks when the risk of COVID-19 is high. The updated guidance places less emphasize on positive cases and more focus on hospital strain. Fairfax County is in low community spread category.
The school system, Brabrand said, will orchestrate contact tracing “in limited circumstances when identified by local health officials” and won’t tell students to quarantine unless they’re identified as a close contact during a school-based outbreak.
Starting March 14, a test-to-stay program will also be available at every county school in the case of an outbreak. Test-to-stay enables unvaccinated close contacts to remain in school if they test negative for the first five days after exposure.
“These changes are evidence that we are entering a new phase of the pandemic,” Brabrand wrote. “We want all families to be confident that their children are learning in a safe, supportive environment.”
At Thursday night’s school board meeting, Fairfax County School Board Chair Stella Pekarsky shared a statement on behalf of the board, noting: “We strongly recommend that parents and students continue to have their children wear masks in school.”
“We encourage our community to continue to follow the guidance of health officials, particularly for the benefit of our immunocompromised students and staff,” the statement said.
At a public hearing Thursday night, Kimberly Adams, president of the Fairfax Education Association, said, “We appreciate requiring masks for all employees will continue until we meet the moderate transmission numbers in our county.”
In a statement Friday, Adams said, “Protecting our most vulnerable staff and students remains our priority. We encourage FCPS employees to maintain their 6 foot distance from others whenever possible, but we know that in our school and transportation settings this is not feasible at all times. Cases continue to be identified in our schools and we expect contact tracing to be done in all sites. Efforts to vaccinate students are ongoing. Maintaining the layered prevention strategies is our only way out of this pandemic that has now taken more than 1,400 lives just in Fairfax County.”
