Palouse-area schools do their own math on masks

With the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revising their guidance about face masks – and with the Moscow City Council voting to end the city’s mask mandate earlier this week – local schools and universities are taking a fresh look at their requirements.

Washington State University officials recently released guidance reaffirming the mask requirement for the school’s campuses, saying they have yet to receive clear direction on the matter from state leaders. The school also will continue to require daily attestations from people that they are not experiencing COVID-19 symptoms before their arrival at WSU facilities.

“Given that there’ll be a period of time before there’s new guidance, we thought it was probably appropriate just to reinforce the idea that, from our perspective, things have not changed,” said WSU spokesman Phil Weiler. “Despite the updates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we are really guided by the governor’s office direction for higher education specifically.”

The University of Idaho lifted its mask mandate but requests those who have not been vaccinated continue to wear them. Officials indicate they hope to see increased vaccination rates among students and staff, but the university does not plan to require vaccination in the fall.

“People cannot ask others at (the UI) if they’ve been vaccinated or not; that’s a violation of their employee privacy, so there’s really no way we can know who’s vaccinated and who’s not,” UI spokeswoman Jodi Walker said. “What we can do is encourage everyone to be vaccinated and continue to provide opportunities for everyone in our university to be vaccinated, and then remove that mask mandate.”

For local K-12 school districts, the guidance is a little clearer. After issuing its revisions last week, the CDC clarified its guidance for K-12 schools, recommending they continue to require masks until the end of the school year.

Pullman Superintendent Bob Maxwell said his school district will adhere to this recommendation.

Moscow Superintendent Greg Bailey said Moscow schools too will continue to require masks. In addition to the CDC recommendation, Bailey said most elementary through high school age students have not yet been vaccinated. He said the Moscow district has gone 15 months without hosting an outbreak, and it seems like a bad idea to tempt fate with only a few weeks left in the school year.

“I’m hoping, possibly, that for the summer programs, we will be able to go with masks (being) highly recommended, but not required – but I will sit down with my health and safety committee to review that prior,” Bailey said. “But right now, we want to finish the year out strong, so we want to maintain where we’re at.”