School Committee passes resolution against mask mandate

Feb. 16, 2022 | Lauren LeBel
llebel@thereminder.com

AGAWAM – As of last week, school administrators hadn’t announced whether Agawam will drop its school mask mandate when the state mandate expires on Feb. 28, but School Committee members said early in the week that they opposed the state mandate and trust the superintendent to make a local decision.

Meeting on the day before state Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley announced that the statewide mask mandate would end this month, allowing local school districts to set their own policies, Agawam School Committee members on Feb. 8 debated whether to send a letter to Riley calling for the mandate to end.

Mayor William Sapelli said he and School Department Executive Assistant Alexis Ferioli had developed the letter.

“As we have done for the past two years, we would strongly recommend that people do what they feel comfortable doing,” said Sapelli, whether that be masking, social distancing, hand-washing and so on.

School Committee member Wendy Rua voiced concerns with this resolution. She said back in August, the committee voted 7-0 to express its full trust in Superintendent Sheila Hoffman to make all decisions with regard to masking.

“I think for two years, we’ve had very cooperative conversations in the face of the fact that none of us on this board are medical professionals, nor do we have access to ongoing data,” Rua said. “We entrusted our superintendent to receive, review and interpret the data using [state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education] guidance and our local Board of Health.”

Rua said she worried that sending an anti-mandate letter would “undercut” Hoffman’s authority, unless Hoffman were to come before the committee and state her approval of the letter.

Member Kerri O’Connor agreed with Rua, adding that she questions how the letter could be drafted without assistance from Hoffman.

Due to an administrative error, School Committee members did not know of or receive the letter until the morning of their meeting. For that reason, some felt unprepared to discuss it. Nonetheless, the letter was approved 5-0, with two abstentions.

Hoffman said at the meeting that Agawam schools have switched to an at-home and symptomatic COVID-19 testing program, rather than testing all close contacts in school. As of Feb. 8, 676 students have opted in to the new program, along with 376 staff members, accounting for roughly 19 percent of students and 53 percent of staff.

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