Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools begins major COVID rule changes
Recent changes to county and statewide COVID-19 rules turn the spotlight on Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and whether school board members will similarly scale back pandemic restrictions.
CMS’ board of education will vote on its mask policy at its Feb. 22 meeting, an official confirmed to the Observer late Thursday. Across North Carolina, more school districts are eliminating mandatory mask rules for students and teachers.
The local mask vote — along with state health officials this week instructing K-12 leaders to stop contact tracing and quarantine measures — could bring the biggest change in COVID-19 rules in Charlotte schools since the pandemic began.
Here’s what’s on the table:
School mask rules
Current: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools requires masks be used at all times indoors among students and teachers, regardless of vaccination status.
What won’t change: Masks will still be required on buses, per federal regulations.
What could change: CMS could drop the mask mandate, but it requires a vote from the board. In an email to families Friday evening, officials wrote: “Principals and staff are encouraged to prepare for the likelihood that masks soon become optional for students, staff and visitors.”
Why now: The Mecklenburg County Board of County Commissioners on Wednesday voted to unanimously lift the county’s mask mandate effective Feb. 26, citing a retreat of the virus and widespread availability and effectiveness of vaccines. A day later, Gov. Roy Cooper asked cities and school boards to end their mask mandates, and state legislators approved a bill letting parents, rather than school boards, decide whether their children wear masks in schools.
State officials are encouraging schools to switch to mask optional rules beginning March 7.
Quarantines
Before: If a student or school employee had “close contact” with someone diagnosed with COVID, they were required to stay out of school for at least five days. That’s a proactive type of quarantine to see if the exposed person develops symptoms. Over the last week, there were close to 500 people in CMS listed as having to quarantine. It’s unclear how many of those students and staff were sick versus how many were staying home due to suspected exposure.
What’s changed: CMS leaders say the district will follow recently-changed North Carolina school health guidelines to end quarantines, unless the student or employee is clearly sick. The state guidance was announced Feb. 10, to go into effect Monday, Feb. 21. The change also means schools will stop individual contact tracing.
“Close contacts or those potentially exposed to the virus will not be required to quarantine, even if they are exposed to someone in their household who has tested positive,” according to the message CMS sent to families late Friday.
Schools will send out one notification to families in weeks when the school learns that a student or staff member has tested positive. In addition to these schoolwide notifications, athletics teams and other extracurricular clubs that have a defined roster of participants will be notified if an individual on the team or club tests positive.
What won’t change: Anyone actively sick, with COVID-like symptoms, and anyone who tests positive for the virus will still be required to stay home. Clusters — where multiple people have tested positive and likely spread COVID in the school setting to one another — will continue to be reported through CMS’ dashboard with COVID data. The online dashboard also will list positive cases identified by school.
Why now: North Carolina health officials want schools to stop contact tracing efforts, which is the process of finding out who might have been exposed to a sick person at school. Without contact tracing, quarantine is made more challenging and state leaders say COVID trends are improving, which warrants the change. Plus, with widespread staff shortages in schools and families facing a third school year of COVID learning interruptions, eliminating the quarantine requirement will keep more people in schools.
This story was originally published February 18, 2022 at 10:46 AM.
