Douglas County opts out of Tri-County mask mandate, but school district not compelled to follow

Douglas County’s committee of commissioners voted Thursday to opt retired of the Tri-County Health Department nationalist wellness bid that requires masks for kids ages 2-11 successful schools and time attraction facilities, though the county’s schoolhouse territory tin support its ain disguise policy.

The unanimous ballot came aft 4 hours of nationalist comment, during which dozens of parents — who sometimes cried astatine the podium — expressed their dismay astatine a nationalist wellness bid that galore referred to arsenic authoritarian and infringing connected their freedoms.

The Tri-County Board of Health voted Tuesday to necessitate students ages 2-11 and teachers and time attraction unit who enactment with those children to deterioration masks successful schools passim Adams, Douglas and Arapahoe counties, starting Monday.

Tri-County Health officials person said that counties are allowed to opt out, but schools and kid attraction facilities tin inactive necessitate masks.

When asked whether Thursday’s ballot means the Douglas County School District tin opt retired of the mandate, Tri-County Health spokesperson Becky O’Guin said “maybe” but pointed to the district’s argumentation that states “management of communal communicable diseases volition beryllium successful accordance with (the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment) and (the Tri-County Health Department) guidelines.”

She referred The Denver Post to the schoolhouse territory for their mentation of the policy.

Douglas County School District representatives did not instantly respond to a petition to clarify their mentation of the policy, but schoolhouse officials said Tuesday it would comply with the disguise order.

Douglas County’s lawman region lawyer Kelly Dunnaway told commissioners during Thursday’s gathering that their ballot “simply means determination is nary bid to enforce wrong Douglas County.”

However, helium said, the region “lack(s) the powerfulness to forestall the schoolhouse district, oregon immoderate edifice for that matter, from imposing their ain disguise mandate. Their house, their rules.”

Most of the Douglas County parents who spoke during Thursday’s committee gathering said they believed Tri-County wellness didn’t person the close to archer them however to support their children. One described the combat arsenic the “civil rights contented of our time,” adjacent going truthful acold arsenic to comparison the conflict to that of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.

Mask mandates successful schools person stirred debates crossed Colorado — and passim the state — arsenic schools find however to resume in-person classes arsenic coronavirus cases owed to the much contagious Delta variant.

School districts crossed metro Denver person enacted disguise mandates implicit the past fewer weeks, including JeffCo Public Schools, which changed its this week from lone ages 3-11 to everyone successful a schoolhouse gathering — students, teachers, unit and visitors.

Earlier this week, the Tri-County Health Department released a summary of the nationalist remark responses it received up of its vote. It showed 62% of much than 12,000 respondents successful the three-county portion “do not enactment masking successful schools nether immoderate circumstance.” More than 4,000 of those non-supporters were from Douglas County.