No more mask mandate for students and school staff in schools within the Charleston County School District

Charleston, South Carolina – Starting Wednesday, students and staff in schools within the Charleston County School District will no longer be mandated to wear masks in schools.

The decision to lift the mask mandate was voted at Monday’s Board of Trustees meeting.

With the mask mandate in place, there have been roughly 400 students who were switched to virtual learning while the mandate was in place.

Now with the mask mandate cancelled, all of them will get back to school and continue with the educational process regularly.

There are several pandemic protocols still in place like cleaning and quarantine protocols. However, the classrooms are expected to look the same like the pre-pandemic. As of now, there are no classroom limits.

According to the latest Covid-19 data, there have been a total of 40 cases in the schools within the district in the last week, while this week there are a total of 8 cases until now.

The decision to remove the mask mandate relied on COVID-19 numbers reported by DHEC and MUSC showing the infection rates at just over 3%.

Although there is no strict policy and plan, the mask mandate might be enforced again if the Board of Trustees members see an increase in the number of cases in near future.

“We’re not making these decisions on our own. We’re not doing these things on our own,” Pruitt said. “So I think that should give parents a lot of confidence that everything that we have in place, everything that we’re doing, is being done in conjunction with medical advice.”

Although the mask mandate in schools was canceled, students are still mandate to wear face masks while in the school buses.

The district plans to start offering COVID 19 vaccines for school-aged kids with parents’ consent next week. They’ll be available 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. at ten after-school clinics.