Bemidji Students Successfully Advocate for End to Mask Mandate

BEMIDJI, MN (trfnews.i234.me) A Thursday protest by Bemidji students on Thursday has ended a COVID mask mandate.
that mask mandate protest we told you about at bemidji high school on thursday was effective uh this in from bemidji superintendent tim lutz i’m letting you know that isd 31 is moving from its mandatory masking policy to strongly recommending masking after examining a number of data points and consulting with health officials in our district and in our community the district has determined that the mandatory masking policy can be adjusted the policy change will take effect at the beginning of school tuesday february twenty second twenty twenty two we are making this change due to steep declines in covid uh in the community numbers as well as very low numbers in our district a couple of months ago we were advised that the omicron variant would rapidly increase in the community but then would drop off just as rapidly we are currently at the point where we see those numbers have dropped to the point where we believe we can move away from a masking mandate uh the covet case rate throughout the district has been very low over the past three weeks in some schools within the district there have been no recently reported cases of covet in addition the two-week rolling averages have dropped during the same time period in addition between the vaccination rates of students and numbers of people who now have posted covate immunity we believe mandatory masking is no longer necessary at this time but is still strongly recommended one more factor that was significant in making the change from mandatory to strongly recommended masking is the fact that the district has just received a shipment of kn 95 mass from the minnesota department of health which may be used by those who still would like that additional measure of protection while the discrete district is moving to a mask recommendation i would like to emphasize that if conditions were to change and covet numbers begin to spike again additional precautions such as masking may need to go back into effect in order to keep schools open safely another important caveat is that the federal transportation administration still has a mass mandate in place on all public transportation including school buses through march 18th it is still to be determined whether or not that mandate will be extended beyond that date however mass will continue to be mandatory on all school buses until further notice thank you again that’s from uh superintendent superintendent of bemidji schools tim lutz i’m Neil Berg reporting for eye news dot tv