NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Students at McCann Technical School will not be required to wear face coverings when the 2021-22 academic year gets underway next month.

 

On Thursday, the Northern Berkshire Vocational Regional School District Committee voted 10-1 to support a recommendation from Superintendent James Brosnan that the district follow to the letter a July 30 memo from the commonwealth's commissioner of education.

 

That state guidance recommends unvaccinated school personnel, students and visitors wear masks indoors but stops short of requiring the face coverings and says schools may "allow vaccinated students to remain unmasked."

 

"[The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Department of Public Health] strongly recommend that unvaccinated staff in all grades, unvaccinated students in Grades 7 and above, and unvaccinated visitors wear masks indoors, in alignment with the statewide advisory on masking," Commissioner Jeffrey C. Riley's four-page memo reads in part. "DESE and DPH recommend that schools allow vaccinated students to remain unmasked."

 

The guidance was formulated in July when positive cases were extremely low; the numbers have risen sharply in the last three weeks but the state has not altered its guidance as of yet. 

 

Brosnan on Thursday told the School Committee that if the state's guidance changes, he would be able to implement more restrictive measures without requiring the panel to convene for another vote.

 

"I've got to go with DPH, and that's where DESE comes from," Brosnan said. "When we stay with that guidance, we eliminate any of the decision making. If this doesn't work out, and we get cases, OK, we've got to do something different.

 

"They're still pushing: This is our guidance. It would be easy for me to say, 'Everyone has to wear a mask.' … If we stay with the higher HQ guidance, then we can adjust later if we have to."

 

This month, the School Committees in the cities of North Adams and Pittsfield and the Mount Greylock and Berkshire Hills regional school districts have each elected to implement mask mandates at all grade levels. 

 

DESE is "strongly recommending" that pupils in pre-K through sixth grade wear masks while indoors; that population currently is not eligible to receive vaccines. McCann Tech exclusively serves students in Grades 9 through 12, who have been eligible to receive vaccines since the spring.

 

A couple of times during a lengthy conversation with the School Committee, Brosnan noted that he cannot ask students or staff about their vaccination status without violating privacy laws.

 

When asked if he had data on what percentage of high school age kids are vaccinated, Brosnan said statewide it is estimated that about a third have been vaccinated for COVID-19.

 

That prompted another member of the committee to say the school should expect two-thirds of the students wearing masks in September.

 

"Yes, if they're honest," Brosnan replied.

 

"You're cheating yourself and others if you're unvaccinated and not wearing a mask. Shame on you."

 

Brosnan said that allowing vaccinated students and staff to go maskless will provide an incentive to get the vaccine and that the school will continue to promote a pro-vaccination message to its community.

 

A couple of members of the School Committee challenged Brosnan on his decision to adhere strictly to the language in the DESE guidance.

 

One committee member said he has a relative who is a teacher at a school in Tennessee, which he characterized as, "even more lax than we are in Massachusetts," that has a 20 percent positivity rate for the novel coronavirus.

 

"I feel masks are for everyone," he said. "But that's just me. In the future, things are going to start rising again."

 

Adams' Bruce Shepley was the lone member of the School Committee to vote against Brosnan's recommendation. 

 

"As a health-care provider, I think that following the guidance … that's the easy way out," said Shepley, a registered nurse. "I would like to see the district take a stronger position on that and not lean back on something that says, 'We're OK because the state says so and we're following the minimum.'

 

"If Big Y is saying you can't come in without a mask or Walmart is going in that direction or the restaurants in New York City … I think we have a higher responsibility."

 

The reaction to Thursday's vote on social media was, predictably, divided.

 

One commenter on the iBerkshires.com Facebook post asked, "Do they really think the unvaccinated are going to wear masks?"

 

But many echoed an individual who wrote, "So thankful for this decision, leave it up to the individual."