Gateway students, staff to start school year with mask requirement

Gateway School District students will have to wear masks to start the school year.

The mandate was passed in a 5-4 vote at a marathon school board meeting Aug. 17. Several families implored the board to make mask-wearing a recommendation and not a requirement.

Board President Brian Goppman, Robin Mungo, Scott Gallagher, Susan DeLaney and Richard McIntyre vote in favor.

Vice President Valerie Warning, Mary Beth Cirucci, Scott Williams and John Ritter dissented.

“Right now, we’ve got to focus on kids getting into school,” Goppman said. “The delta variant — nobody knows how it’s going to play out in the schools. This just popped up over the summer.

“Best-case scenario, we can switch to optional (masks) by September. Worst-case scenario, it stays on. The flexibility to keep viewing where we’re at is very important.”

A split school board

McIntyre said he supports the health and safety plan because it was formed using recommendations from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as state and Allegheny County health officials.

“For me, the updated guidance in regard to contact tracing and quarantines made masking the best possible option to safely return to five days (of in-person instruction) and minimize disruptions due to positive cases in the district,” he said via email.

Other board members want to make masks a family decision.

“I really feel it’s the parents’ choice,” Cirucci said. “They know what their children are going to be faced with. It’s their children, and they should have a say-so.”

Multiple parents came forward urging masks be recommended and not mandated.

“I demand mask choice for the upcoming school year,” Kelly Matrazzo said. “There has not been one case of kids passing this virus on to teachers, and we’re not going to stop the spread of this virus — masked or not.

”Let’s face it: there are no local state or federal mask mandates for schools. There are only recommendations. … Families should have a choice. You need to accommodate all of our children. Kids have a right to breathe fresh air.”

Superintendent William Short did not respond to calls or emails after the meeting.

Parents divided, too

Parent Mike Gielarowski said there’s a lot more data available about covid than there was before, and he wonders why the district does not cite any studies that show mask effectiveness. He also said more children die from the flu than covid and questioned other information from the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“You’re more likely to get in an accident driving home than you are to die from covid, so all I’m saying is let’s use some common sense,” Gielarowski said. “This wasn’t meant to be our kids masked forever.”

Other parents cited the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence and the Bible when opposing the mask mandate.

Some of the audience members hooted and applauded nearly every time someone spoke against masks.

About 3,300 students are enrolled for the upcoming year. The first day of classes is Aug. 26.

Administration explains position

Assistant Superintendent Dennis Chakey delivered a PowerPoint presentation with highlights from the health and safety plan prior to public comment.

The administration used information from UPMC, Allegheny Health Network and the CDC when forming the health and safety plan.

Chakey said due to the highly contagious covid delta variant, the CDC recommends universal indoor masking for all students, staff and visitors to all K-12 schools regardless of vaccination status.

A scenario on one of the slides involving a student with covid indicated students in close contact with that person while wearing a mask would not be required to quarantine while a maskless student would have to quarantine.

A survey was sent out earlier this month to gauge if families want their students to wear masks.

About 5,000 surveys went out and a little more than 2,100 responded within the day-and-a-half it was open.

District officials said 61% of respondents were in favor of a masks while 39% wanted it to be optional.

Gateway will offer full-time, in-person instruction as well as an online-learning option.

Chakey said he expects a lot of students in the buildings.

“We understand the importance of having a five-day in-person learning experience for students,” he said. “No one was a fan of the hybrid. We know that remote learning, although it has its benefits, nothing is better than being in a class with the teacher.”

A survey was expected to be sent out to families to decide which option is best for their students.

Will revisit issue in mid-September

The mask mandate will be in effect until at least Sept. 21. The board plans to revisit the issue that month.

“As we learned over the summer, a lot can change in a couple weeks,” Chakey said. “We’ll take a look at some of the data and look at the current situation as we evolve through the opening of school and revisit this in September to see if this is something that is going to continue.”

Mitigation efforts that continue include regularly sanitizing and disinfecting high-traffic areas within facilities and utilization of disinfectant fog machines.