Update: Health officials backtrack after saying California schools should ban maskless students

Hours after it published updated school guidance for the 2021-2022 academic year, the California Department of Public Health backtracked on a rule that would have required schools to ban students who refused to wear face masks.

Earlier Monday, the agency published new school mandates that said students who didn’t wear the face coverings would have to be turned away and instead offered “alternative educational opportunities.”

But Alex Stack, a spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom, said late Monday that the state agency will clarify guidance to give school districts more freedom in masking, “recognizing their experiences over the past year.”

The state agency already announced last week that face coverings for students and adults would still be required in schools this fall to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The rules are stronger than recommendations laid out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which states that vaccinated individuals can shed their masks in most settings.

The new federal guidance still recommends face masks for unvaccinated people, and separating students at least three feet indoors in order to reduce transmission. When distancing isn’t possible, the agency urged schools to “layer multiple other prevention strategies, such as indoor masking.”

Because many California schools won’t be able to distance students per those recommendations, the Department of Health wrote in a Friday press release, the state agency decided to continue mandating masks regardless of vaccination status.

Before the revision, the guidance said schools would have to turn students away who refuse to wear a mask and who are not covered by a legitimate medical exemption.

“In order to comply with this guidance, schools must exclude students from campus if they are not exempt from wearing a face covering under CDPH guidelines and refuse to wear one provided by the school,” the guidance originally noted.

Currently, the guidance says masks will remain optional outdoors, but all K-12 students and adults who work around kids will have to wear the face coverings while indoors.

Schools must provide face coverings for students who don’t have them. Students with disabilities or conditions that don’t allow them to wear traditional masks are supposed to wear “non-restrictive alternatives,” like a face shield with a drape.

All schools in California also have access to a free COVID-19 testing program.

The rules take into consideration “current unknowns associated with variants,” including Delta, and “operational barriers of tracking vaccination status in order to monitor and enforce mask wearing,” the agency’s website includes. The guidance also attempts to mitigate stigma, bullying and isolation associated with vaccination status.

The guidelines continue to strongly recommend vaccination for all eligible teacher, staff, students and individuals with family members in school communities. Students 12 and up are now able to get vaccinated. So far, 20.5 million people in California have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and another 3.1 million are partially vaccinated.

But as California embraces some normalcy amid falling infections, new cases and hospitalizations are inching up nationwide in communities with low vaccination rates. The highly infectious Delta variant is largely considered the culprit for these new spikes.

The state agency’s rules are in alignment with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s demands that schools fully reopen this fall. Legislative leadership has also encouraged students return to classrooms in full after more than a year of Zoom schooling that disproportionately disadvantaged low-income communities of color.

“Masking is a simple and effective intervention that does not interfere with offering full in-person instruction,” Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said in a statement. “At the outset of the new year, students should be able to walk into school without worrying about whether they will feel different or singled out for being vaccinated or unvaccinated - treating all kids the same will support a calm and supportive school environment.”

The department plans to reevaluate the face covering rules no later than Nov. 1.

This story was originally published July 12, 2021 at 6:27 PM.