“These trends are troubling”: Colorado leaders urge school districts to require masks

As galore students instrumentality to classrooms wherever masks are optional, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and the authorities wellness department’s enforcement director, Jill Hunsaker Ryan, are urging schoolhouse districts and charter schools to follow disguise requirements, particularly for unvaccinated people, to support students and marque definite they tin enactment successful school.

Colorado has near decisions astir COVID information protocols up to section leaders, adjacent arsenic the Colorado Department of Public Health Environment adopted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance that calls for everyone to deterioration masks successful schoolhouse settings, careless of vaccination status.

But astir schoolhouse districts and galore autarkic charter schools person lone recommended masks, not required them.

In a missive sent Tuesday to superintendents and charter schoolhouse leaders, Polis and Ryan noted the alarming summation successful COVID cases among children, including terrible cases that necessitate hospitalization, successful states that decided not to institute mitigation measures specified arsenic masks. Polis and Ryan besides noted the summation successful quarantines and switches to distant learning that person occurred successful immoderate communities.

“As authorities leaders and arsenic parents of schoolhouse aged children, these trends are troubling to us; it’s worrisome that immoderate of Colorado’s schoolhouse districts and schools mightiness endure the aforesaid result if they bash not instrumentality recommended actions to support their students and staff, and sphere in-person learning,” they wrote.

While the missive hinted that the authorities mightiness enforce tougher COVID protocols nether definite conditions, Polis seemed to backmost distant from that anticipation astatine a quality league Wednesday successful which helium expressed respect for antithetic values and levels of hazard tolerance astir the state.

“We person a strategy successful our authorities wherever the opinions of the bulk of parents done our antiauthoritarian institutions of schoolhouse boards are mostly reflected successful the information protocols taken successful the schools,” helium said. “And it’s good that antithetic communities and antithetic families successful antithetic parts of our authorities person antithetic hazard thresholds. There is nary close oregon incorrect erstwhile it comes to hazard thresholds. There’s parents who don’t fto their 16-year-old thrust and there’s others who do.”

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