Miami-Dade students can take off masks while outdoors but must use them inside, district says
Miami-Dade County Public Schools students will no longer need to wear masks while doing outside activities for the rest of the school year, which ends in two weeks.
MDCPS made the announcement Saturday afternoon in a tweet explaining that the change in policy follows an agreement reached with the United Teachers of Dade.
The new policy will go into effect on June 1 and last through the end of the 2020-21 school year. Students will still need to wear masks while indoors. These outdoor activities must be approved by a principal and require physical distancing.
MDCPS had made masks optional only for outdoor, socially distanced activities on May 18, but Superintendent Alberto Carvalho walked back this announcement a day later after UTD pointed out it violated the letter of understanding between the union and the district.
He also announced the the 2021-22 school year would be mask-optional, even though that conclusion was not officially reached by medical experts advising the district.
The letter, signed in August, required all employees, students and visitors to wear facial coverings, with any changes having to be negotiated and agreed upon.
On May 19 when Carvalho rescinded the short-lived optional masks policy, about 80 anti-mask protesters — some of whom did not have children in public schools — rallied outside a School Board meeting calling for an end to mask mandates in schools.
Karla Hernandez-Mats, UTD president, said in a statement that the district’s tweet about the mask policy change was “highly misleading and void of context.”
“Our agreement with MDCPS is part of the summer school LOU for working conditions and pay structures for our bargaining unit,” Hernandez-Mats said. ”It has absolutely nothing to do with the anti-masker debate fueled by a group of political terrorists who have apparently spooked our Superintendent. It is appalling that he would try to placate to such a group by ways of an agreement that had nothing to do with them.”
A spokeswoman for the school district also said the decision to allow for optional masks while students were outdoors was not driven by the speakers who came to the Board meeting, it was made after consultation with medical experts.
This story was originally published May 29, 2021 at 8:20 PM.
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