Masks optional in Dare County Schools beginning February 9
At their February 8 meeting, the Dare County Board of Education (BOE) voted 6-1 to make face coverings optional in Dare County’s schools beginning on Wednesday, Feb. 9. Face coverings will still be mandated on all county school buses and transportation, due to state and federal requirements.
The motion to change the policy was made by Board Member Mary Ellon Balance and was seconded by Board Member Carl Woody. Margaret Lawler cast the dissenting vote, stating that teachers and principals had asked the BOE to “hold on one more month.”
The BOE voted on September 1 to continue to require face coverings as the school year began, due to the prominence of the Delta variant. The September 2021 decision reversed a 6-1 vote a month prior, on August 5, which allowed for optional mask-wearing.
Per a Dare County update on Tuesday, the number of new COVID-19 cases in the county from January 31 through February 6 was 253. This is a decrease from the 412 new cases reported the week before, from January 24 through January 30. There are currently 72 active COVID-19 cases among residents of Dare County, per the Dare County Department of Health and Human Services.
Sadly, the right-wing-nut, neo-fascists once more try to threaten our school board and local officials into submisission to their anti-science and severely wrong-headed notions.
Freedom doesn’t mean that everyone can do as they please, regardless of whom it may harm.
The covid laws and regulations currently in effect are for the protection of the entire community. We cannot allow a few misguided and misinformed miscreants to dictate how our society should function, especially when their ‘solution’ leads to the harm and detriment of our local people and society.