No Masks For Schools This Fall In New York State

The mask mandate for schools was ended in New York State at the end of February.  At this point, it doesn't appear that it will be coming back this fall.

Here in New York, we are right in the middle of summer.  The last thing people want to do is to start thinking about back to school already.  However, after seeing spikes of COVID-19 the last two years in the fall, administrators are already looking at what the upcoming year will look like.

Governor Kathy Hochul announced her plan for schools this afternoon and it looks like they don't include masks this time around.

Obviously, the plan looks to be keeping kids who are sick away from the others.  New York has 3 million COVID test kids that they intend to distribute to households before the school year begins so that parents can tell if their child has COVID before sending them to school.

During her update she included,

"Everybody is going to ask 'are kids going to need masks in schools?' this was a big issue last year, right now we're saying they don't. We don't currently, based on today's numbers, anticipate the need for masks in classrooms but I'm going to reserve the right to return to this policy if the numbers change, the circumstances change and the severity of the illnesses change." - Governor Kathy Hochul

Governor Hochul added that she believes kids need to be in school and the goal is to make sure that they are in the classroom for in-person instruction this fall.