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Just a week after releasing new COVID-19 protocols and four days before the start of the new school year, Indianapolis Public Schools will require all students and staff to wear masks indoors — regardless of vaccination status.
Last week’s district guidance said masks were optional for vaccinated students and staff. Only unvaccinated students and staff were required to wear masks indoors.
During a Thursday morning media roundtable, IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said the district was reviewing the updated recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Marion County Public Health Department that were based on surging coronavirus cases due to the delta variant. Hours later, IPS issued its updated policy.
The CDC recommends masks for all students, teachers, and staff indoors, regardless of vaccination status. However, the Marion County Public Health Department just recommends masks indoors for all unvaccinated students, teachers, and staff.
According to the new district guidance, students are still encouraged to prove vaccination status to their school in case the mask guidance changes later in the year. Additionally, staff should continue to provide vaccination status.
As Marion County’s 11 school districts open for the first day of school, districts are handling masks in different ways.
Like IPS, Warren Township is requiring all students, staff, and visitors to wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status.
Wayne, Pike and Washington townships are requiring masks indoors for unvaccinated K-12 students and staff. If Pike students and staff wish to opt-out of wearing masks, they must provide vaccination documentation or a positive test for antibodies. In Wayne, masks are recommended for fully vaccinated individuals indoors and required for unvaccinated students and staff.
In Lawrence Township, masks are recommended indoors for unvaccinated students, teachers, and staff.
In Beech Grove City Schools, masks are recommended indoors for all unvaccinated students in fourth grade and above and for all unvaccinated staff. Masks are optional for fully vaccinated individuals and for all students in Pre-K-grade 3.
In Speedway Schools, masks are required for unvaccinated staff but not required for vaccinated personnel. Students in kindergarten through second grade are not required to wear masks. In third through sixth grades, masks are recommended in the classrooms but required in places like hallways. For students in seventh through 12th grades, masks are required for unvaccinated students when physical distance is not possible. When students are in pods and classrooms, masks are recommended, but not required. All students and staff on buses must wear masks regardless if they’ve been vaccinated.
Wearing masks is optional for students and staff at Perry, Franklin, and Decatur townships.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
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What a joke.
You may get cancer… prophylactic chemotherapy for all!
“Barely a week” after saying the exact opposite. Science! Right Democrats?
What does IPS have to do with politics?
Good decision IPS!
West Coast Wes can’t let go of trying to con(troll) Indy.
I wish I had enough free time to comment on a local newspaper from 3 days driving distance away 😆!
Hi guys. Sorry, but I think the trolls are the people who feel the need to personally attack me when I’ve said nothing about you. Why do I occupy so much space in your head? Live your lives. I don’t think about you in my spare time.
if you have to defend yourself by denying your trolldom, you are a troll
The Federal Government clearly has no idea what they are talking about because they have been on every side of COVID-19 since it first arose in China.
Masks do/don’t work.
Vaccines do/don’t work.
COVID-19 is not airborne/is airborne.
COVID-19 probably not from lab/probably is from lab.
Bottom line: the federal government can not and should not be trusted for guidance when they have been consistently wrong on fundamental aspects of science. It is sad that Indianapolis leaders would rather listen to bureaucrats in Washington D.C. than doing what is best for local constituents.
They are doing whats best, requiring masks. Hard to comprehend that health is more important than public opinion?
Where is the evidence that masks are effective in blocking COVID-19 airborne particles?
Where is the evidence that masks are effective in reducing transmission of COVID-19?
Where is the evidence that mandatory masks will not cause a negative impact on restaurant/tourism/entertainment revenue and thus loss of jobs, more “stimulus” and thus more inflation?
We’ve clearly seen the impacts of lockdowns, mandatory masking, social distancing, and remote learning. Mostly negative.
D H, there is plenty of information you can easily Google to see the effectiveness of masks.
N95 masks are effective as demonstrated by science.
Paper masks from Walmart are not effective. In fact, it can cause an increase in transmission because people feel like they can crowd around and suck in each other’s breath.
Let’s stop pretending that wearing a cosmetic facial covering does anything.
“The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus”, according to Fauci.
Also:
“There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.” Fauci
D. H.
+100
Logic and transparency in real science is a challenge for over 50% of the USA.
David G. please site any credible, peer reviewed, scientific study that finds mask to be effective. Go ahead, I’ll wait….
…Exactly.
Healthcare. The new political game for “progressives”.
In the U.S., 335 children under 18 have died with a COVID-19 diagnosis on their death certificate between March 2020 and February 2021. The CDC estimates the infection fatality rate from COVID-19 among children 0 to 17 years old is 20 per 1 million. Death is always a tragedy in a young person but the percentages do not warrant a complete upheaval of the school system and the mental health damage this does to our kids. Parents need to get a back bone and say no more to these overreach measures.
Also keep in mind the vast majority (>60%) of those cases had major contributing comorbidities including leukemia, obesity, immunocompromise.
I do not agree with another mask mandate but fear is gripping many people and the government’s response is slanted that way. However, why mandate that little kids have to wear masks? I could half understand mandating HS and MS students being required, even though I do not think it is a good idea, but to require this of K-5th grade is just absurd. I wonder if we will ever be through with this…
Illegals are pouring through our southern border by the hundreds of thousands, positive with COVID-19 in many instances, not wearing proper masks, unvaccinated, and overwhelming our immigration system.
But our kindergartners need to wear useless cosmetic masks according to our unelected bureaucrats.
Misplaced priorities is an understatement.
Maybe the illegals are needed to fill all the jobs that the dead unvaccinated can’t do.
Own the libs, get the shot.
Misinformation in this thread is truly an understatement.
WASHINGTON, July 28 (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell blamed misinformation for the low rates of COVID-19 vaccination among Americans, which are fueling a rise in coronavirus cases, particularly in Republican-dominated states.
“There is bad advice out there, you know. Apparently you see that all over the place: people practicing medicine without a license, giving bad advice. And that bad advice should be ignored,” the 79-year-old Kentucky lawmaker told Reuters.
…
A few prominent Republicans, including Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, have begun speaking out against false claims and conspiracy theories promoted in conservative media that are leading some Americans to reject vaccines.
Ivey last week told reporters it is “time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks” for rising cases of COVID-19 and criticizing people spreading misinformation about the vaccines.
She said in a Washington Post opinion piece this week that those “pushing fake news and conspiracy theories about this vaccine are reckless and causing great harm,” adding that many of the unvaccinated are “being lied to.”
…
Frank Luntz is a veteran Republican pollster advising the administration of President Joe Biden about reaching people reluctant to get the vaccine. He has been warning for months about the impediment to COVID-19 vaccination rates posed by politicization.
“The key here is to ensure that no one feels like they have to do it. They have to want to do it. So, insulting them or mandating them won’t work,” Luntz told Reuters. “Political messages won’t work, unless you’re Donald Trump. If Trump were to say to them: ‘Hey, get the vaccine.’ That would make a difference. But he doesn’t do that. All he does is complain about the election.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/mcconnell-strives-counter-bad-advice-boost-us-republican-vaccination-rate-2021-07-28/
What truly slays me are the same people peddling the same nonsense about masks don’t work, the vaccine will turn you into a magnetic 5G tower, etc… are the same people who then turn around and want society to act as though there is no virus. As it says in the Bible, eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. We have to reach herd immunity somehow.
They’re right in a way – we are going to reach herd immunity one way or the other. Some of us have chosen the easy way, with vaccines with an astonishingly low number of side effects. The rest of you want to do it the hard way by getting COVID and gambling it won’t be a bad case.
I’d put forth that if you choose to gamble, because you know better than science, you forfeit your right to use the health care system if things go south. Use your essentials oils and your Hydroxychloroquine and your bleach injections. Just don’t use the ER and ICU’s, those should be reserved for the breakthrough patients and those ineligible for the vaccine. If you’re going to reject science, do it all the way. Commit to your choice. Don’t count on modern medicine to come in and use their accumulated knowledge to help you. I mean, what do they know compared to that guy who keeps popping up on your social media, or that guy who was on Hannity? Doctors used to prescribe leeches, they’re insane!
Just make sure you write this down for your family – 317-327-4744. It’s the number to the Marion County Coroner’s Office. It would make their lives easier.
The science? Joe B. and the rest. Answer me this question. Do you know what the size of a virus is? Did you know that until they invented the electron microscope they could not even see them? Do you know the size of the openings in the fabric of your typical mask that people are being asked to wear? Without being too precise, sense different brands have different weave patterns and sizes, lets just say those openings can be seen with the naked eye. The air pressure of the lungs expelling air as well as the pressure drawing air in pushes droplets of moisture and of course the viruses through the material of these face masks without any trouble at all. Any material or substance able to stop this flow of aspirated viruses would make it impossible to breath. Those kinds of masks are the ones actually worn when there is a real concern about dangerous infections and what will be seen worn in level 3 or greater situations. The wearing of masks mandated by politicians is not of any health benefit and indeed in small children will be a health concern due to the restriction in volume of air that is required to breath normally. It does not stop breathing or the virus but breathing becomes far more concerning especially when this is more about having a feeling of being compliant and that seems to be the reasoning for this symbol of obeyance.
So don’t talk about “science” when this idea of masks is about as far away from science as the Earth is to Mars.
So is your solution is another lockdown, mandatory vaccinations, or just letting people die their way to herd immunity?
I’m also real tired of masks and also tired of making sacrifices on behalf of people who reject science. I am just as frustrated that masks are coming back as you are, probably more so. We should not be dealing with another wave but here we are.
That’s why I’m ready to let those who reject science take their chance with no masks and no vaccines, I just don’t want you clogging up the medical system and putting medical professionals at risk of themselves getting sick. Medical care should be saved for kids under 12, breakthrough patients, and the truly immune compromised who can’t get the shot.