NOTE: This story has been updated to add new information from Gov. Mike DeWine’s Friday news conference.
Back to school means back to masks on buses for students across Ohio as COVID-19 cases continue to rise and the highly contagious delta variant becomes the dominant virus threat.
The Centers for Disease Control’s updated guidance requires face coverings by people using public transportation no matter their vaccination status. The mandate extends to school transportation.
“They are qualifying school buses and buses to be mass transportation and public transportation since we receive public dollars for it,” said Northwestern Local Superintendent Jeffrey Layton. “Our legal counsels told us that we’re obligated to require masks of anybody on a school bus and that’s universal for all school districts.”
To mask or not to mask:businesses consider the latest COVID guidance as cases increase
The CDC’s most recent update on its website states, “passengers and drivers must wear a mask on school buses, including on buses operated by public and private school systems, subject to the exclusions and exemptions in CDC’s Order.”
Masks are recommended, but not required in indoor public settings, under the CDC’s guidance. The agency, along with the Ohio Department of Health, urge people to get vaccinated to gain protection.
“The name of the game today is vaccines. This is where we win. This is where we don’t win,” Gov. Mike DeWine said Friday at his first COVID-19 briefing in six weeks. “We have two Ohios. We have people who are vaccinated who are very, very safe today. We have people who are unvaccinated who are not safe and are more in peril because of this delta variant.”
Young children are not eligible for the vaccine, leaving them vulnerable to the virus, health experts have said.
” … I’m not aware of any school district in the state not requiring masks on school buses,” said Layton.
Masking up on the school bus
Educators in several school districts in the tri-county area, including West Holmes, Hillsdale, Dalton and Northwestern Local, said they will be following the CDC’s mask mandate for buses, though masks will not be required in school buildings.
Wooster City Schools Board of Education agreed at its June 27 meeting to require students and staff to wear masks regardless of vaccination status. The board said it will revisit the decision at its August meeting.
More:College of Wooster joins growing list of schools requiring masks
East Holmes Superintendent Erik Beun said his district, while aware of the CDC requirement, is discussing the matter and will continue to communicate with parents as changes occur.
“We’re not one that’s gonna require masks (in school),” Dalton Local Schools Superintendent James Saxer said. “We strongly recommend them. If they want to wear them, we support students and staff that want to wear them, and we’ll make sure that the climate of our buildings is one that is supportive of whoever wants to wear a mask and whoever doesn’t want to wear a mask.”
Ashland public transit: ‘We were never taken off the mask mandate’
City of Ashland transit coordinator Liz McClurg said due to a memorandum from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the city’s public transportation services never stopped requiring the use of masks and this update will not change how it is running things.
“We were never taken off the mask mandate. Homeland Security and the TSA drive our mask rules at a federal level,” McClurg said. “… Even before the last one (mask mandate) expired, we were told that we had to continue to wear masks in the vehicle, anytime we were with clients and that’s the policy we’ve been following.”
McClurg said Ashland Transit will continue to require all drivers and riders to wear masks and drivers will wipe down vehicles.
They also will continue to provide disposable and cloth masks in case people need them. And, McClurg said, Ashland Transit tries to make sure riders are aware of its policies when it schedules rides.
“We haven’t taken our partitions down, they’re still up. Our drivers have been wearing masks,” McClurg said. “… those are things that we do, anyway, because we do by nature transport a high-risk population. So even before COVID we still had to deal with the flu, we still had to deal with all other kinds of communicable diseases, so it really hasn’t affected us an incredible amount.”
More:Wayne County COVID-19 vaccine tracker: 36% of people fully vaccinated
On Friday, DeWine singled out Ashland and Holmes counties as being among the state’s 88 counties with the lowest vaccination rates. The encouraging news, DeWine said, is that both counties, along with Adams County, saw a marked increase in vaccinations in the final week of July.
“These three counties have had the three largest increases in vaccinations by percentage, so we’re happy to see that,” DeWine said.
Ashland County went from 95 vaccinations the week of July 4, to 199 the final week of July, while Holmes County jumped from 24 vaccinations to 92 during those same weeks, the governor said.
Masking on school buses
Making sure masks are available on buses and for those who would like one in schools is something Dalton’s Saxer, Northwestern’s Layton and Hillsdale Local Schools Superintendent Steven Dickerson said their districts will do in this upcoming school year.
“Our (bus) drivers carried them last year, we’ll have them in the office,” Dickerson said. “When we lifted the ban last year, we had students that chose to still wear them and that’s fine.”
Layton said his district, with the help of the Wayne County Health Department, will offer a vaccine clinic in the elementary school gym on Aug. 13.
The clinic is open to students, staff and community members who have not yet received a vaccine and are eligible to get one. Layton said he would like those who are interested to call the district office so the health department can be made aware of how many people will be attending the clinic.
Many area school districts said they will continue to keep some of their COVID safety measures in place, such as cleaning and disinfecting, using dividers in areas such as lunchrooms, and overall recommending masks be worn at school though not requiring them.
Wooster Daily Record reporter Kevin Lynch and Ashland Times Gazette reporter Christine Jenkinson contributed to this report.
Reach Rachel at rkaras@gannett.com
On Twitter: @RachelKaras3
