District Going Mask Optional On March 7

by Melissa Wilkinson

The Webster Groves School District will no longer require masking for students or staff beginning Monday, March 7, following a vote at a Feb. 25 board of education meeting.

All schools in the district will move to a mask-recommended environment this Monday, with the exception of the Walter Ambrose Family Center. Students there, who are too young to receive COVID-19 vaccines, will continue to wear masks, as will staff when around students.

Superintendent John Simpson said optional masks will be contingent on the positivity rate in an individual school. Should any school reach a threshold of 1.5% positive COVID cases among students and staff in its cumulative seven-day total, that school will require masks again for two weeks, at which point a new cumulative total will be calculated. If the new total is still 1.5% or higher, masks will be required for another two weeks.

Students and staff who are not vaccinated will be required to quarantine at home for five days if deemed a close contact of someone who tests positive.

“We’ve been in close consultation with the St. Louis County Department of Public Health and medical professionals from the start and we have not deviated,” said Simpson. “Everything we’ve done has been endorsed or recommended or reviewed by them and this is no different. The regional data is trending in a very, very favorable direction, and those experts believe it’s only going to continue in that direction.”

Though the St. Louis County mask mandate is no longer in effect, the board also voted to require masks at board of education meetings if any of the district’s schools are requiring masks at the time.

The Webster Groves School District’s 1.5% threshold mimics that of the Kirkwood School District, which went mask-optional on Feb. 22 under the same conditions.