Despite recommendations from state officials and local health experts, many school districts across Idaho are discussing ending mask requirements for students and staff in school full time.

As cases of COVID-19 have remained steady and vaccine distribution is ramping up, school districts across the state are looking at ending mask requirements for students and staff. Local health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are still recommending masks in school settings.

The Middleton School District board of trustees is facing calls to end its mask requirement, including a call from state legislator Tammy Nichols earlier this week. The board will discuss its mask requirement at a meeting on April 12.

In a Facebook post, Nichols said she emailed the Middleton school board, asking about why Middleton students were “still wearing masks at school.” Her post called on residents to voice their mask concerns to the board members ahead of the meeting.

Some school districts in the state have removed mask requirements, even with students back in classrooms full time.

In Bonneville County, Bonneville Joint School District 93 will not require masks for its students and staff during the third trimester of the year. The school board voted 3-1 in favor of ending the mask requirement beginning on March 8.

Many public schools in the state still require or encourage masks in schools. Representatives from Boise, West Ada and Vallivue school districts said they expect the district to require masks while in school in person for the rest of the school year, with no plans to discuss a change.

More than 20 districts in the state do not have any requirement for masks, according to the Idaho Ed News COVID-19 operational plan map.

Twin Falls and Buhl School Districts will discuss the mask requirements, following a survey sent out to parents staff and students.

In Middleton, both the community and board members asked that the mask requirement be put on the agenda for the upcoming meeting, school board Chairman Kirk Adams said.

He said the district wanted to wait until after spring break to discuss masks so that the board could discuss any spikes in COVID-19 cases. He said the board has been watching the case counts in Canyon County.

Southwest District Health retired its color-coded COVID-19 data chart that included recommendations based on where a county was located in the chart. Before it was retired, Canyon County remained in the yellow stage because of sustained COVID-19 cases.

Dr. Michaela Schulte, Regional Chief medical officer at St. Luke’s, said many people are ready for the pandemic to be over, but she warns that it is not yet safe to go back to “our old habits and the way we interacted before the pandemic.”

“It is not over yet,” Schulte said. “There are certain practices that we know work and I think the masking and the distancing have been keeping us really safe.”

Schulte said she wants students to stay in school and teachers to remain safe and well.

“I want teachers to have some ability to mitigate the need to be safe versus meeting needs of students and I think it can safely be done with continuing the efforts like masking and distancing,” Schulte said.

The number of COVID-19 cases across the state have plateaued, Schulte said, despite vaccination distribution efforts ramping up. She said the state is also seeing continued hospitalizations.

“I would love for (the numbers) to further drop to be more confident that we can move forward from the pandemic,” Schulte said.

On Tuesday, Gov. Brad Little and state epidemiologist Dr. Christine Hahn strongly encouraged Idahoans to continue wearing masks.

“We continue to strongly recommend that people continue to wear masks,” Hahn said in the AARP town hall.

In Middleton, the teacher’s union, the Middleton Education Association, will meet with board members next week to discuss their take on the mask requirement.

The union president, Dave Stacy, said there is a survey out to teachers to collect responses about the mask requirement and its potential removal, but as of now he asks that teachers be given the option to require masks in their own classrooms.

“If a teacher has a condition and is concerned with getting (COVID-19) or spreading it, they should have the right to have a student wear a mask,” Stacy said. “If we don’t have a mandate, but people are in close confinement, they should be able to have an agreement that they would wear masks if someone is uncomfortable.”

Adams said all options will be on the table and the board is expecting to hear from parents, the teacher’s union and health experts about the mask requirement.

He said he was surprised by Rep. Nichols’ email, but agreed community members should get in contact with the board if they want to have their voices heard.

“We are gathering all the information we can and we will sit down and have a discussion and hopefully make a decision that night,” Adams said.

Nichols has children in the Middleton School District and said in an email that she wants to “see kids get back to normal living and let them be kids without extra stress, which is causing mental health issues, depression and suicide attempts.”

“There is not good science showing that this is necessary for kids to be masking as they are at little to no risk,” she said.

In the CDC Operational Strategy for K-12 Schools, it instructs opening districts to “require consistent and correct use of well-fitting face masks with proper filtration by all students, teachers, and staff to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission through respiratory droplets.”

The CDC reported between April and October 2020, hospital emergency departments saw a rise in the share of total visits that were from kids for mental health needs. The CDC wrote that during the beginning of the pandemic last year, children were missing out on the mental health services offered through their schools, while schools were in lockdown. It did not mention how masks might play a role in mental health concerns in children.