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Palo Alto elementary and middle schoolers are going to once again have to wear face coverings at recess and lunch, under a new outdoor mask mandate the Palo Alto Unified School District announced Friday.
The requirement takes effect on Monday. High school students will continue to have the choice of whether to wear a mask outdoors, although the district encourages it. The state requires masks be worn indoors for all grade levels but leaves it optional outdoors.
Superintendent Don Austin estimated that over 80% of Palo Alto students are already choosing to wear a mask outdoors. However, having 100% of students mask up outdoors will make it easier to implement the state’s protocols for responding to COVID-19 cases on campus. The requirement will simplify things, Austin said.
“It just seemed to make sense as contact tracing is much more challenging when you add the additional variable of masked or unmasked,” Austin said.
Under the state’s rules, unvaccinated students who come into close contact with someone that tests positive for COVID-19 can continue coming to school but only if certain criteria are met, including that both the unvaccinated student and the person who tested positive were wearing masks at all times during the exposure.
“Now we know if you’re on our campus and you’re outside and within 6 feet of somebody, you’re going to have a mask on,” Austin said.
Students will only be allowed to take a break from masking outside if they are at least 6 feet away from everyone else.
According to Austin, the calculus is different at the high school level, where students are “largely” already vaccinated. Currently, anyone ages 12 and older is eligible to get the shot. Fully vaccinated students who get exposed to COVID-19 are allowed to remain on campus, so long as they have no symptoms, without school staff having to determine if masks were worn at the time of exposure.
Palo Alto’s decision to require masks outside for elementary and middle schoolers follows in the footsteps of some local K-8 districts, including Mountain View Whisman and Los Altos.
Parents had also reached out to the district to encourage Palo Alto to require masks outdoors, Austin said, adding that, at a meeting on Friday, all the school principals supported the change.
He acknowledged that some people may have trouble with the mandate, given many other outdoor activities don’t require a face covering.
“For some people, they are struggling with the contradiction that you can walk through downtown Palo Alto and see people walking outdoors without a mask in no violation. You can see people eating indoors without a violation. And yet in schools you can’t play kickball without a mask,” Austin said.
However, in the end the district decided to move forward with the rule because it will simplify contact tracing protocols, was supported by principals and aligns with nearby districts, he said.
“If this helps us to keep our doors open for the great things we’re seeing in classrooms, then it was worth it,” Austin said.
Two of our kids were exposed this week at school — one in elementary and one in high school. Covid is circulating in our town and in our schools. Keep the masks on, and please get vaccinated if you are able to. PAUSD please offer on-site weekly testing!
Question for Don Austin – do you personally wear a mask for more than 4 hours straight 5 days in a row? Estimating that 80% of PAUSD parents are part of the “pajama class” and have never done this. This is child abuse.
How about we follow the science? The benefits of masking kids are unproven. At best masking kids offers minimal (unproven) protection against a virus that is less dangerous than the flu for these kids. At worst it’s just pure political theater with zero controlled experiments or convincing real world data to justify.
The Science of Masking Kids at School Remains Uncertain
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-masking-kids-at-school-remains-uncertain.html
Let’s see if Palo Alto Online will try to censor “the science.”
So what does this mean for choir and band classes? Choir can sing masked if they have to, but band musicians cannot, not without using masks with breathing holes that are illegal under the county’s mandate. Is the district making an exemption for band? Or I guess every musician has to be six feet apart, outside.
The arts always seem to be the last thing any politicians and public officials think of during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, as Austin even acknowledges, anyone can eat indoors without a mask.
> Is the district making an exemption for band?
Maybe keep the school bands as all percussion units or a Taiko ensemble?
If we want kids to wear masks properly while indoors then they need a chance to take them off while outdoors.
– The arts always seem to be the last thing any politicians and public officials think of during the pandemic.
A low priority and rightfully so.
Besides, one can paint or sculpt wearing a face mask.
I am not sure what it feels like to be masked up for 7 hours a day with just a short break to eat. For most of us adults we are not doing this, even while working lunch breaks, etc. can mean getting outside to take a break from the masks.
Children need to learn how to read facial expressions. It is not just a smile but also, sad faces, angry faces, scared faces, worried faces, etc.
I worry for this generation because there will soon be a time that for many children they do not remember what it was like to live a normal life.
This will be even worse for those children who have to stay at school in childcare for a couple more hours until their working parents pick them up.
Just my thoughts.
The key is to make face mask wearing fun for the kids. Then they will embrace the concept.
Perhaps an arts and crafts project where they can make personalized face masks via batik or tie-dying.
Get vaccinated, continue wearing a facemask (when in public), and avoid large social gatherings for the time being.
How simple is that?
Very simple…unless one resides in a Republican-laced red state where education and public health are low priorities.
There’s no way Austin would require high schoolers to wear masks outside, that could ruin his precious football season.
I like when he uses precise terms like “largely” and when he says “some people” he actually means himself.
The breakthrough Covid-19 infections
(despite being fully vaccinated) has many people concerned about their safety.
Many anti-maskers and pro-vaxers are now in alliance from the standpoint of their objections to having to wear facemasks in public.
This could make sense if there were any actual data supporting plus a considered determination that the benefits outweighed the costs. But, there *are no* data supporting it, just intuitions and the urge to minimize legal risk in case some parent goes ballistic about something.
So the result is that we have public school educators teaching and enforcing what amounts to superstition in the lower grades. Glad my kids went to private school.
It’s important to remember, though, that this is being enacted at the elementary and middle school level because the vast majority of these students aren’t eligible for the vaccine, while high school students are. Hopefully that will change in a few months.
>> There’s no way Austin would require high schoolers to wear masks outside, that could ruin his precious football season.
^ And water polo season.
@ Jane & PA Community Advocate: Agree 100 percent!
People in Palo Alto are irrational about their masks, and parents are unhinged when their kids are exposed to covid. Yet in WRITING from SCC Health Dept Cody, and CDC, that the flu is exponentially more deadly to kids! Were/are those same parents freaking out every time their kids were exposed to someone with the flu? Nope. Zero – common- sense or ability to rationally mitigate risk.
Author is a renowned investigative reporter for the NY Times, Atlantic, Wired, WSJ, etc. Excerpts below.
The Science of Masking Kids At School Remains Unclear:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-masking-kids-at-school-remains-uncertain.html
“Many of America’s peer nations around the world — including the U.K., Ireland, all of Scandinavia, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy — have exempted kids, with varying age cutoffs, from wearing masks in classrooms. Conspicuously, there’s no evidence of more outbreaks in schools in those countries relative to schools in the U.S., where the solid majority of kids wore masks for an entire academic year and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. These countries, along with the WHO, whose child-masking guidance differs substantially from the CDC’s recommendations, have explicitly recognized that the decision to mask students carries with it potential academic and social harms for children and may lack a clear benefit. “
…..
“Vinay Prasad of UCSF wrote in a critique of the CDC’s child masking recommendation. “The CDC cannot ‘follow the science’ because there is no relevant science.”
…..
“A pediatric immunologist at a major university hospital who was not authorized to speak publicly said, “It is not biologically plausible that the same variant somehow is more dangerous for kids in the U.S. than it is in the U.K.”
…..
Dtr of Emergency Med Infectious Disease Mgt at Boston Medical Ctr, “there are real downsides to masking”
1. “People in PA/irrational about masks”
Bay Area counties are under indoor mask mandates. Indoors includes classrooms. “Irrationality” or “feelings” has nothing to do with the spread of Delta and the public health response of requiring masks to try to slow it.
2. “parents are unhinged when their kids are exposed to covid”
Yes. They are concerned parents that likely do not want their children exposed to a potentially fatal pathogen. That’s called being a good parent and worrying about your children.
3. Were/are those same parents freaking out every time their kids were exposed to someone with the flu?
The flu/Covid comparisons have gotten old. How long ago did Cody state that information? Was it from last year? There is a more transmissible variant and with a simple internet search anyone can find that more children are getting sick and hospitalized currently with Delta. Kids were also home last year.
4. “Including U.K/Ireland/ have exempted kids”
Another apples to oranges comparison. Their disease transmission is likely not the same as in the U.S.
5. “It is not biologically plausible that the variant somehow is more dangerous for kids in the U.S. than it is in the U.K”
The variant is plenty dangerous for everyone including kids. “More” dangerous is meaningless.
6. To your cherry picked data of finding professionals giving downsides to children masking here is a link of one who promotes it:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7417296/
7. But, there *are no* data supporting it,
Another, false assumption. Please, in reverse, provide *some data* the kids would be safe without masks.
Last year schools were closed and people had a fit over closures. This year schools are open WITH MASKS. Follow the rules. These are not YOUR children. I don’t know what is the endgame here to promote “no masking in schools.” The health of children/ families and the community is the priority. Stop it now. It’s disgusting.
What do Samuel L. and Lyle Eckhardt have against football (and water polo)? They tried and could not make those teams back when, so they didn’t get the girl (or boy)?
Wow, now I know what Andrew Sullivan meant on the last Maher show when he said ‘leftist elitists want you to wear masks in your bathtub’ !
I hope to god it does not happen, but if the governor gets recalled, it will be the absolute fault of these kind of crazy over the top social media warriors… And ironically, they will be just as oblivious about their toxic influence.
Maybe all the sports-haters intersect reasonably with morbid obesity? So it is in their own selfish interests to make the young, fit, and fully vaxxed mask up and social distance forever for them?
If there are no face masks required while participating in outdoor sports such as football, spitting out water on the sidelines, along with teammate congratulatory physical contact should not be allowed and punishable by a 15 yard penalty.
And being an indoor sport, basketball players should be required to wear face masks while competing or on the sidelines and the same goes for close contact sports like wrestling
Baseball and track could get waivers because the spacing requirements are built-in…except when runners are on base which should trigger a face mask mandate by the umpire if an infielder is holding the runner on.
If I was in Austin right now, I’d be sure you guys were just effing with me. But out here, I know you are as serious as a totalitarian dictator… Whatever happened to the left? Who remembers the hippies as so concerned with everyone being the same so they must do this and do that immediately by demand? Mr. S? Should young fit athletes who are fully vaxxed and trying to live their lives, really be such a concern to you? Why not get all bossy with really overweight sports-haters instead?
Red state mentality + Friday Night Lights mentality + anti-vax/anti-face mask mentality = a public health concern in regards to curtailing the Delta variant.
Sports is merely entertainment, no different than a stage production or movie except that they keep score.
We gave away our 2021 49er and Giants season tickets…much more enjoyable to watch the games at home.
No more traffic, parking, drunkard fans, and exit crowds to deal with.
Ignoramus football mentalities are best reserved for places like Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida where Covid public safety measures take a back seat to common sense.
@John B. Sails…I lettered in three high school sports (football, basketball, and baseball).
Yeah, maybe you did maybe you didn’t, you are anonymous online, Mr. Rogers. I think I must have hit a nerve when I said ‘overweight sports haters’, huh?
However, you are clearly (mal)adjusted to the red v. blue team overly simplified way to (under) address complicated topics, that’s for sure. I take it, ‘the opposite of what Trump said’ served you well almost a year ago, and by gum, you’re sticking with that forever without additional thought. It may be inconvenient truths, but Austin is as blue as most CA cities, certainly much more so than the nice places we go to ski out in Eastern California. I personally don’t care if you gave away your tickets, I like to go in person to sporting events. Why can’t I go and you stay home and snack in front of your TV? I’m fully vaxxed and not obese: it’s not illegal, so bear it. In fact, sports champion sustained human effort and persistence, getting up when knocked down, and working with others for a common goal–remember teamwork from your lock down lair, fatty?; When did a dumb hollywood movie do all that? Aren’t they all now about people wearing halloween costumes?
We need red state reps to get anything done in congress for everyone. A president is supposed to rep everyone. This matters on so many levels. But you get self-righteous social media warrior points for flipping all the red majority state people who like football more than you do, off. How is THAT more than (self-righteous) entertainment for you?
Play on! And in the event a player falls ill (or is injured), there will always be another player to hopefully step in and fill the position.
That is life (aka reality).
Just curious why so many comments are being removed? Could it be they are negative Don Austin comments? He always says “PAUSD is the ‘leader’ in the pandemic” when reality is he only follows Los Altos and Mountain View and Menlo School Districts. We are larger yet he has failed to be brave and be a leader in any of this.
What has happened is he has encouraged early retirement of teachers (many of whom are excellent teachers) from PAUSD, led to turnover of staff during a time when students need stability. I’ve heard Paly senior students can’t get AP courses they need or want. Class sizes are larger.
But you know, the one thing that ran smoothly and continued even while students in elementary and secondary schools didn’t return till a week after Spring break once schools closed down? It was the football team.
Actions speak louder than words. Priorities.
Football (on any level) is not a sound substitution for a good education…judging by the countless illiterates playing college and NFL football
“…the countless illiterates playing college and NFL football”
That is why so many of them are bankrupt or homeless after their playing careers are over.
It starts with college recruitment via substandard academic athletic scholarship criteria and then a fast jump into the NFL prior to graduating.
Some of the dumbest football players are wide receivers and defensive linemen who can be plugged instantly into just about any pro format if they have the talent.
Most MLB and NBA aren’t too bright either but the pay is great!
Many professional sports teams are requiring full vaccinations + the mandatory wearing of face masks.
High school sports should be no different as the participants are minors.
yes, yes of course. White people who want to uh slyly insult people of color, Palo Alto Online is your place! e.g., red states, we know what they mean. more black people in …Houston and Atlanta than in any CA city–by far, and that’s how some people like it right? Insult football? “those” people play it, they are ‘so dumb’. and Palo Alto Online moderators sigh with happiness: our white customers expressing themselves without rebuttal allowed!
I know I will be censored, yes, I know where the exit it. But, Palo Alto and surrounding ventilators and urgent care rooms are not full. Further, our HS players ARE fully vaxxed. You guys are just insulting and bossing for no good reason.
Prep football is not as important as preparatory academics and public health measures to ensure the safety of our school-aged children.
This is obviously a 180 mentality in countless red states who worship football and disavow the dangers of the coronavirus variants and large gatherings.
Just ask the folks in Sturgess, SD after the
700,000 pseudo Hells Angels departed.
Football is just recreational entertainment (for those so inclined or compulsive gamblers).
In the larger realm of things it is just another outside activity that some non-participants (aka spectators) seem to make a big deal out of.
Fottball (and other sports genres) will not save the world or make it a better place.
Blaine is just a tub of lard sports hater who lives in Menlo Park.
“Fottball [sic] (and other sports genres) will not save the world or make it a better place.”
They won’t save the world but any form of entertainment can take our minds off other things.
And speaking of “lardbuckets” most of them are armchair QBs with a six-pack of beer and a basket of buffalo wings…their version of being athletic.
Right you are, Mr. Fleishchman!
This is an important distinction I think, as I see more and more people of all ages and abilities out speed walking and jogging around Shoreline/Baylands and the Satellite at Stanford. These are people who realize how to beat Covid rather than the maximum lock-down advocates from their basements.