A handful of teachers and parents on Monday night asked the city’s school board to thoughtfully consider proposed changes to its masking policy this week.
Two language teachers said during the public hearing that their students need to see their mouths when developing skills, while a few parents asked the board to maintain its policy at least through the end of the school year saying the student vaccination rate was still low.
Ellie Haizlette, a Spanish teacher at Allderdice High School, said that masks limit language skill development that relies on lip-reading and facial cues.
“Even though we tend to think of speech communication as taking place through sound, a great deal of information can be communicated visually,” she told the board Monday as she urged it to follow the latest CDC guidance which only recommends universal masking if COVID levels are high. Allegheny County is currently in the low level of COVID-19, per the guidance.
Parent Lydia Blank noted said that one of her Allderdice High School students was recently a close contact to someone who had COVID-19.
“Thankfully both he, the positive student, and the rest of the individuals in the school were wearing masks. I shudder to think what would have happened had nobody at school been wearing masks,” she said. “There are less than 40 days left in the school year. Please don’t put PPS students or teachers at risk of having to miss these last few days because they become sick or bring the virus home to vulnerable family members.”
Blank said that she didn’t think the district should remove masks until considerable changes were made to school ventilation systems.
Former school board member and current PPS parent Moira Kaleida said that not all children will be able to attend school if masking is optional.
“I urge you to think of students who are not vaccinated, are immunocompromised, whose families or caretakers are elderly or sick, our preschoolers who can’t be vaccinated yet and others with medical circumstances that would put them at severe risk if they were to contract COVID,” she said.
Kaleida asked that masks return if the COVID-19 level is medium in Allegheny County rather than the CDC’s guidance of only if it returns to high. Kaledia, who now works as an education policy advocate for OnePA, also noted that the vaccination rate of Allegheny County students is low, something that PPS physician Martin Gregorio agreed with during a recent board meeting.
The board is set to vote on updates to its health and safety plan that follow federal guidance during its Wednesday meeting at 6 p.m. It can be streamed at pghschools.org.
