‘It is real’: With COVID rising, Johnson County to require masks in all grade schools

The Johnson County Board of Commissioners on Thursday agreed to mandate masks in public and private elementary schools, aiming to protect students not yet eligible for the vaccine as they return to classrooms this month.

The board voted 5-2 to approve the order, which requires masks inside schools with students as old as sixth grade. Middle schools with sixth-graders also have to require masks, unless sixth-graders are separated from higher grades throughout the school day.

“We all want our schools open. We all want our kids in class learning. That’s an objective that we all share,” Chairman Ed Eilert said. “As we have learned this summer, there have been instances at summer camps of the same age, 5-12, where a camp had to be shut down because of the spread. So it is real.”

Commissioners Charlotte O’Hara and Michael Ashcraft voted against the health order.

Schools might be able to enact their own mask policies that are stricter or more lenient than the order the county approved, the county’s legal counsel told The Star.

“Local school districts may be able, by resolution, to adopt a more restrictive policy or opt out of the (county board’s) restrictions under their so-called limited home rule authority,” the counsel said in a statement. “It will be up to each school district to determine whether they have the legal authority to adopt a policy contrary to the (county board’s) order.”

Unlike Kansas City and Jackson County, Johnson County did not consider a countywide mask mandate. As COVID-19 cases skyrocket and hospitals become increasingly strained, Kansas City’s indoor mask mandate went into effect Monday. Jackson County announced Wednesday it plans to reinstate its mask order, effective next Monday. Officials in both Platte and Wyandotte counties were scheduled to consider mask mandates at meetings Thursday night.

Johnson County instead stuck to requiring masks only in schools with younger students. Health Officer Joseph LeMaster called it a “targeted intervention to protect from COVID-19 our most vulnerable population currently, children under 12 who are not eligible for vaccination.”

Without a countywide order, Prairie Village city officials are considering passing a mask mandate of their own.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently recommended that even vaccinated people wear masks indoors in parts of the U.S. where the coronavirus is surging, including in Missouri and Kansas.

Who should wear masks?

Johnson County’s decision on Thursday came after a nearly four-hour-long discussion, including pleas from roughly 90 residents speaking both for and against the mandate. Several physicians and parents called for the order to go further and require universal masking at all grade levels.

Commissioner Janeé Hanzlick made a motion for such a mandate, but it failed on a 3-4 vote.

In Johnson County, only 40% of children ages 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated, health officials said, raising fears that unvaccinated and unmasked children will rapidly spread the virus, leading to potential school closures.

LeMaster said that cases are quickly increasing among young people, driven by the highly contagious delta variant, local hospitals are full and ICU capacity is “getting dangerously low.” On Thursday, the county’s positivity rate — the number of positive tests in the past 14 days — was 8.7%, up from 1.5% in early June.

In 2020, before the start of last school year, health officials recommended districts begin classes remotely because of similar infection rates. But now district officials say that’s not an option after the state Legislature placed restrictions on public schools’ use of remote instruction.

Health officials agree that universal masking — combined with hand-washing, social distancing, cleaning and testing — helped slow transmission in schools last year.

“Our goal in proposing this order aims to keep schools open and children in school for in-person learning,” LeMaster said.

The school mandate includes all staff members and visitors where there are students in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade. Masks would be mandated on school buses, but not outdoors. The order includes exemptions for certain medical and religious reasons.

The order will be in effect from Aug. 9 through May 31, 2022, unless it is amended or revoked.

Throughout the pandemic, Johnson County health officials have stuck to only offering guidance to districts, leaving many difficult decisions up to school officials. This is the first health order with a school-only mandate proposed in Johnson County.

Several school districts have been slow or unwilling to mandate masks on their own this summer. On Monday, the De Soto district became the first in Johnson County to mandate masks for everyone. The Shawnee Mission district last week decided to mandate masks in elementary schools — which include sixth grade — and only strongly recommend them for older students. Staff members can opt out of the mandate by showing proof of vaccination.

Other districts in the county have so far made masks optional. But on Thursday evening, the Shawnee Mission and Olathe school boards were scheduled to reconsider COVID-19 protocols for the coming school year.

In total, 57% of eligible residents in Johnson County are fully vaccinated, according to county health department data.

The opposition

Dozens of parents gathered outside Thursday’s county meeting and spoke against pandemic mandates, arguing that families should have the freedom to choose whether to send their children to school with a mask. Some spread misinformation about COVID-19, masks and vaccines.

Commissioner O’Hara, who has been opposed to pandemic restrictions since winning election last November, called the health order “unconscionable.”

Commissioner Ashcraft commended Eilert’s efforts, but said the health order is not enforceable and “tries to offer the illusion that it’s a solution to this problem.”

“But for me, what I reside in, is that those suggestions try to fit the circumstances of the individuals and of the schools and the community. And our approach here comes across as one-size fits all,” Ashcraft said. “And depending on the school, the ability to offer spacing, the ability to segregate kids that want to mask or don’t want to mask or can mask or can’t mask, I think is best left in the hands of the school districts.”

Johnson County districts were bombarded with lawsuits and legal fees toward the end of last school year, as parents sued, claiming to be aggrieved by COVID-19 restrictions. Senate Bill 40, which rewrote Kansas’ emergency management laws, allowed residents to sue over public health measures. A Johnson County judge declared the law unconstitutional, and it could be months before the Kansas Supreme Court issues a final ruling on the matter.

As protests continue, several school officials have called on county health officials to step in.

“Public schools should not be making the decision to mask or not mask our students. School administrators and elected school board members should not be making this decision,” Shawnee Mission Superintendent Michelle Hubbard said at last week’s school board meeting. “We have all been placed in an extremely difficult situation, being left to be the only line of defense for this virus. If public health is truly at stake, then public health officials should be allowed to make this decision.”

Many Johnson County students will return to classrooms on Aug. 12.

Elsewhere in the Kansas City metro, several Missouri districts have decided to mandate masks, including Kansas City Public Schools, as well as the Liberty, North Kansas City, Center and Park Hill districts. The Lee’s Summit school board was set to meet Thursday evening.

In Wyandotte County, the Kansas City, Kansas, district has decided to require universal masking in all schools.