Inland Empire students are looking forward to shedding face coverings — and so are many of their teachers — now that California officials will end the statewide mask mandate for K-12 schools next week.
“I’m happy about the change,” said Michelle Turner, whose straight-A seventh-grade daughter, in early February, joined a protest of more than 100 students against the mandate at Norco Intermediate School.
“I’m proud of the students for standing up for their rights,” Turner said Monday, Feb. 28. “I think they made an impact.”
Rancho Cucamonga resident Kristie Sepulveda-Burchit, who serves as executive director for the advocacy group Educate Advocate, welcomed the announcement. Sepulveda-Burchit said she has a teenage son who cannot wear a mask because of a disability.
“We think it’s long overdue,” she said.
Sepulveda-Burchit said the state got it backwards. She contends California officials should have lifted the requirement for K-12 students before ending California’s broader indoor mask mandate recently — instead of the other way around.
“They (students) should have been the first group to not have to wear masks instead of the last,” she said, citing the fact that, in general, youths tend to have less severe illness if infected with the coronavirus than others.
At the same time, some parents are concerned.
Rosa Loera, a parent of two students at Arroyo Valley High School in San Bernardino, disagreed with the decision and expressed concern about students and teachers when the mask mandate ends.
Loera, who works at Vermont Elementary School and for months has handed arriving students masks at the beginning of the day, told her teenagers to keep wearing face coverings inside the classroom beyond March 11, something she said her kids are fine with.
Loera believes she isn’t alone in her frustration.
“I think most parents aren’t going to be happy,” she said.
Word of the mandate spread quickly Monday. Murrieta Valley Unified School District emailed parents shortly before noon to let parents know.
“We are relieved pandemic conditions are improving and the State of California has transitioned from a mask mandate to a strong recommendation,” Murrieta Valley Unified spokesperson Monica Gutierrez wrote in an email. “There is still more to unpack with the updated guidance, but we are optimistic …”
Starting Monday, March 14, mask wearing will be optional indoors at schools in the Corona-Norco Unified School District, one of the region’s largest public school systems, the district said in a statement. Even so, “high quality masks” will be available to students and staffers who want them.
“We are eagerly anticipating the move into an endemic response to COVID-19 which more closely mirrors a return to a normal learning environment for our students and staff,” Superintendent Sam Buenrostro said in the statement.
Through much of the pandemic, Los Angeles County residents and visitors have had to follow different — and in many cases stricter — rules than in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. But with the school mandate end date, that won’t be the case. LA County health officials announced Monday they would stay in step with the state.
And, so, when students arrive at Pomona Unifed School District campuses March 14, they, too, will no longer be required to wear masks, said Jennifer Francev, director of health services.
“This is very much welcome,” she said. “And everyone is very excited about moving forward.”
The announcement comes as Pomona students prepare for a busy spring of promotions, graduations, field trips and proms and field trips, Francev said. It also comes, she said, at a time when the number of people — students and teachers — testing positive daily for the coronavirus district-wide are in the “single digits” after reaching as high as 300 per day during the January omicron surge.
“It’s a very bright light at the end of what has been a very dark tunnel for us with COVID,” she said.
At the same time, not everyone is ready to ditch their mask.
“There are some people who are nervous as well,” Francev said.
With that in mind, Pomona Unified officials are still recommending that masks be worn, and offering testing and vaccination school sites, she said.
Laura Boling, president of the Riverside City Teachers Association, predicted in an email that reaction to California’s announcement will be mixed in the Riverside Unified School District.
Some teachers will be nervous about the masks coming off — and may keep theirs on for a while, Boling said. Others, she said, will be “ready to get back to their new normal.”
Corona-Norco Teachers Association President Chris Rodriguez said educators there have wanted all along to “provide a safe and welcoming environment for our students” and are optimistic, though cautious.
It wasn’t immediately clear how the mandate would go forward in some schools.
Ginger Ontiveros, a spokesperson for the San Bernardino City Unified School District, said in an email Monday that officials in her district planned to discuss the mandate with the school board Tuesday, March 1.
“We won’t have any definitive answers about how the state’s announcement will roll out in our schools until after we hear feedback from our Board,” she wrote.
John Andrews, spokesperson for the Diocese of San Bernardino, said the diocese has generally followed state health guidelines for its schools in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, but details need to be worked out.
In early February, Norco Intermediate School became the focus of one of the largest student protests against the mask mandate.
Mask-less students sat outside and did school work apart from their classmates for days on end at Norco Intermediate School. At one point, about 200 students in all protested at campuses across the Corona-Norco district, according to officials.
“In the rain, in the wind, they sat outside at the picnic tables in front of the cafeteria,” Turner said.
In the weeks since, the numbers have dwindled, Turner said, and about a dozen or so students protested at the school Monday.
Valerie Smith’s seventh-grade son Brandon also joined the protest at Norco Intermediate, participating for three weeks before returning to class Monday.
“My son is happy because he doesn’t want a mask in school anymore,” Smith said.
Conni Terry of Rancho Cucamonga is happy, too. She pulled her son Jameson, an eighth grader, out of school in December because he was struggling with schoolwork amid the distraction of a face covering.
“He’s on home school now,” Terry said, and is doing better.
With the mandate being relaxed, she said, she will send him back to a public school — Los Osos High School in Rancho Cucamonga — in fall.
Staff writer Brian Whitehead contributed to this report.
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