St. Clair County’s temporary K-12 mask order set to expire Friday won’t be extended, according to the health department.

In a news release early Tuesday, the agency announced the decision, citing a “careful consideration” of factors such as the leveling out of “COVID-19 case counts in schools” that are manageable by districts.

The public health mandate, which required a facial covering of individuals in all elementary and secondary educational settings with a few exceptions, was first issued in late December.

Although some health and school officials cited masking’s ability to help keep kids in classrooms, the set of rules was met with an outcry among some parents and students who spoke at length during recent county board meetings.

The announcement also comes a few days after county commissioners agreed to consider a draft letter to censure Dr. Annette Mercatante, the county’s public and medical health officer and under whose authority the mask order was issued. That was last Thursday, and it wasn’t clear if the formal censure would move forward.

As of Tuesday morning, County Board Chairman Jeff Bohm, who wasn’t present at the last meeting, said, “The motion was made to pass it 6-0 so that put it our agenda. So, it’s going to be coming before us.” But he added, “I think the mask mandate going away changes, perhaps, some of the feelings.”

Most county commissioners have expressed anti-mandate concerns or shared preference for leaving such decisions up to individual school districts. Last week’s step toward a censure — and a committee formed earlier in the month to examine Mercatante’s position — wasn’t exclusively a result of the mandate, but rather, how its rollout was communicated from health officials.

How are schools addressing masking moving forward?

Previously, superintendents with Yale and East China schools have expressed administrators’ preference to make decisions about mitigation measures themselves. 

They and other district administrators in the county weren’t immediately available for comment Tuesday. The response to the health department’s decision varied among some, however.

“We continue to appreciate the St. Clair County Health Department’s efforts to keep our community safe and our schools open,” said Port Huron Superintendent Theo Kerhoulas. “As we always do, our team will evaluate this latest information and communicate how it affects our schools to our families in the next few days.”

Capac Community Schools Superintendent Jeff Terpenning said the district will “move to masks recommended but not required” next Monday.

For Marysville Public Schools, Superintendent Shawn Wightman said the district would also encourage staff and students to wear masks.

He said they will promote physical distancing, testing, and vaccines, as well as continue to disinfect buildings, encourage the ill to stay home, and follow isolation protocols in hopes “these mitigation strategies” meant they can “return to normal.”

“The district appreciates the difficult decision that was made by the county’s health director involving the (public health order),” Wightman said in an email. “In my judgment, the temporary universal masking mandate successfully reduced the spread of the omicron variant in our schools which enabled us to stay open for in-person learning this month.”

In its Tuesday release, the health department also pointed to absences in schools being down and schools being able to maintain staffing levels sufficient to operate. It also pointed to challenging but lowering hospital numbers.

“At this point, the mitigation measures to be used will be left to the local schools as they had previously requested,” the release states.

The health department still recommended masks be worn in K-12 settings and in public and crowded places until transmission rates are below 10%. In a recent media call, Mercatante said the health department believed the mask order had likely curbed what would have otherwise been a “very rapid increase in cases,” though there were still several days the mandate was still in effect.

“We have not seen that dramatic increase that we were anticipating,” Mercatante said in response to a question about handling the mandate moving forward. “So, I guess that’s the good news. And the other thing we would be looking at is really … just the shape of that curve. If we feel like we’re plateauing and kind of almost through the worst of that, as you know, we don’t want to kind of poke this bear any more than we have to. We want to give people back those choices, so I think we’re really going to be looking at case trends.”

Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.

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