Masks optional come Tuesday in DeKalb schools

DeKALB – Beginning Tuesday, face masks no longer will be required in DeKalb schools, although the superintendent said other mitigations will remain in place.

In a letter emailed around 10 a.m. Saturday morning to DeKalb School District 428, Superintendent Minerva Garcia-Sanchez said the district will highly recommend masks be worn for students, staff and visitors, but beginning Tuesday that requirement no longer will be in place.

“There’s no doubt that the news will create mixed feelings in our community,” Garcia-Sanchez said in a letter dated Friday. “It’s important that we all work together to determine how we as a school community can move forward. This means treating everyone with respect and kindness, regardless of our differing opinions.”

DeKalb 428, the largest in DeKalb County, was the only one left as of Friday still requiring face masks. The requirements have been lifted in neighboring districts over the past two weeks, as mandates from Gov. JB Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Public Health faced legal challenges almost two years into the COVID-19 pandemic.

“For now, all other COVID-19 mitigations will stay in place,” Garcia-Sanchez said, adding the district is consulting with the DeKalb County Health Department. “We will share more details in regards to exclusion, close contacts and other mitigation measures in the coming days and weeks.”

Masks still will be required on school buses and when in a school building health office.

Garcia-Sanchez said the decision to lift the mask requirement was due to vaccination rates and a downward trend the community has recorded in recent weeks in local COVID-19 cases. The 2022 school semester started amid a flurry of cases fueled by the omicron variant of the coronavirus during the holidays. Cases in late December and January soared to record highs, and hospitals were overrun.

For weeks, DeKalb County school districts including DeKalb, Sycamore and Genoa-Kingston recorded hundreds of virus cases in students and in mid-January, more than 1,500 in quarantine. In line with community trends, February has seen a dip in those numbers, with fewer than 900 in quarantine and fewer than 150 cases during the start of the month for the three districts combined.

As of Friday, recorded cases – while they don’t include at-home tests or backlogged laboratory data – are the lowest they’ve been in the county in 2022 so far. Hospitalizations are also down across the state. According to the IDPH, DeKalb County is averaging 15 new admissions per week, and 116 throughout the region.

As of Wednesday, according to the IDPH, 56.9% of DeKalb County residents are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. In the DeKalb zip code, that number is 49.78% as of Feb. 9, and 65.61% in Sycamore.

DeKalb, the largest city in the county, has the fourth lowest vaccination rate, in front of Shabbona, Kingston and Kirkland, data shows.

Since 2020, the DeKalb school district has been consistent in its pandemic-era policies. Before Pritzker issued a statewide school mask mandate in August, District 428 was the first district in the county to decide to initiate its own mask mandate. Garcia-Sanchez said at the time, “It’s better to be preventative than wishing we did something more.”

An earlier decision last summer by Sycamore and Genoa-Kingston schools to make the face coverings optional was overturned by the governor’s emergency order. The two districts moved back to an optional mask policy last week as a statewide battle over school pandemic mandates brought the issue to the forefront.

Garcia-Sanchez said in her letter the district’s formulating a plan to wind down other COVID-19 mitigation strategies.

“We feel confident that our mitigations have prevented significant transmission in our school buildings,” she said. “With that said, we recognize that we must work towards striking a balance of implementing mitigation strategies and returning to ‘normal.’”

She asked district families to help ensure people’s individual decisions for mask-wearing is respected.

The topic has been at the center of tense school board meetings across the state of late. In Sycamore, a school board meeting was abruptly halted in person Feb. 8 and changed to a virtual model which didn’t allow for public comment. The decision came after Board President Jim Dombeck told the largely masked crowd of almost 300 that too many maskless individuals refused to comply with the district’s instruction and created an unsafe environment in the meeting. A week later, Sycamore schools made masks optional.

At DeKalb’s school board meeting Tuesday, three parents spoke out against the mask policy, and an elementary school teacher.

“I implore you to be respectful and kind during this time and support each individual’s decision regarding wearing a mask,” Garcia-Sanchez said in her Saturday letter. “Our intent is to make sure our students experience a smooth and peaceful transition.”