SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio ISD's board of trustees voted Monday night to remove the district's long-standing mask mandate.
The district was among the last remaining local school districts requiring masks to be worn inside.
The district said Tuesday morning that they are changing the mask protocol from "required" to "encouraged"
The following statement was the motion approved by the Board of Trustees to lift the district’s mask mandate:
“The COVID-19 positivity rate in SAISD continues to decrease significantly. To date, CDC's community level classification for Bexar County is currently ‘low’ and Metro Health has also designated the current risk level as ‘low.’ In acknowledgement of these findings, I move to rescind the mask mandate currently in place effective immediately and encourage the continued use of masks by all staff, students, and visitors throughout all of our schools and facilities and authorize the Superintendent of Schools, to monitor and adjust the mask wearing mandate based on criteria established by the Superintendent of Schools with guidance from the local public health authority.”
The district says a letter was sent out to district families Tuesday morning explaining the change.
More than 9,000 people completed SAISD’s online COVID response survey, which asked questions dealing with the mask mandate.
The survey was pushed out last week when students and staff returned from spring break.
“We’ve had the mask mandate really throughout the pandemic. Our employees and our parents and students know that safety has been a priority for us,” Toni Thompson, SAISD’s associate superintendent of human capital management told KENS 5 on Monday.