School districts grapple with how to keep students and staff safe from COVID-19

New York currently doesn't have an indoor mask mandate statewide, so counties are working with their local school districts to come up with their own rules.

News 12 Staff

Aug 10, 2021, 10:24 AM

Updated 1,233 days ago

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As the delta variant surges, students are getting prepared go back to school full time and in-person in less than a month.
New York currently doesn't have an indoor mask mandate statewide, so counties are working with their local school districts to come up with their own rules.
Masking, testing, and vaccinations are the three big questions Westchester schools need answered.
Should there be a vaccine mandate for students old enough? Should there be regular COVID-19 testing? And maybe most hotly debated - should there be a mask mandate in class?
"If mask wearing is going to help us to get all of our children back into schools and potentially diminish the disruption that contact tracing and quarantine brings to families, I think it’s the easiest decision in the world to make," says White Plains Superintendent of Schools Dr. Joseph Ricca.
Some districts are also interested in partnering with the county to set up satellite vaccination sites near their schools.
The county hasn’t made any concrete decisions yet, but it will send out a reopening guidance document to schools next week.