DECATUR, Ga. — City Schools of Decatur officially dropped their mask mandates in March, but school officials are once again strongly recommending students and faculty to continue to wear masks until the end of the school year.
CSD sent out a letter to parents Wednesday stating that this recommendation comes after seeing a hike in COVID-19 cases over the past two weeks.
However, they emphasized that the overall impact of COVID-19 remains relatively low concerning severe illness and hospitalization.
The city said that enforcing a mask mandate once again would be a difficult task due to the Unmask Georgia Students Act that Gov. Brian Kemp signed back in March. This law allows public school parents to choose whether or not to send their children to school with a mask and prevents disciplinary action against students who do not wear them.
For this reason, they are asking all parents to report cases as soon as possible, keep students that are not feeling well at home, wear masks and limit exposure outside of school.
The last day of school for CSD students is May 27.
Here is the full letter sent to CSD parents:
Greetings CSD Community,
As we can see, COVID is a disease we will continue to live with and as we see spikes in our community, we must continue to adjust our mitigation strategies accordingly.
As many of you are aware, we have seen a rise in cases at our schools over the past two weeks. In light of this, CSD is asking all staff and students to wear masks while in our schools. The Governor signed the “unmask-students” bill into law and that makes implementing a mask mandate very difficult for our staff to manage. I will not be reinstituting a mask mandate for CSD, but strongly encourage all staff and students to wear masks to protect themselves and others as we finish the last few weeks of the school year.
As mentioned previously, while there has been a recent uptick in the number of cases in our community over the past few weeks, the impact of COVID-19 remains relatively low with respect to severe illness and hospitalization. We recognize that quarantine and class closures have posed significant challenges for students, families, and educators.
We want to partner with parents to keep students in school with minimal disruptions due to COVID. Please help us by reporting cases as soon as possible, keeping students that are not feeling well at home, wearing masks, and limiting exposure outside of school. By partnering together to keep kids healthy and in school, our students can participate in the much-anticipated fun end-of-year activities and finish the school year strong.