Masks off: School board announces end to indoor mask mandate

Following guidance from the California Department of Public Health, the DJUSD school board announced an end to the indoor mask mandate on March 3rd. Plus we take a look at teenagers and video games. Packages by Maria Anderson and Julian Dunn.

Producers- Max Davis-Housefield & Stella Maze, Music by- Daniel Ruiz-Jimenez

Transcript:

Max Davis-Housefield: Masks in class … may soon be a thing of the past. From the BlueDevilHUB this is The News Cycle. I’m Max Davis-Housefield.

Coming up: “I want to hear that from scientists, saying Gwynth, you can take off that mask and you can be with people.” Following guidance from the California Department of Public Health, the DJUSD school board has announced an end to the indoor mask mandate. Plus a look at teenagers and video games. Today is Monday March, 14th.

On the 28th of February, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that the California Department of Public Health guidelines regarding indoor masking in the classroom would change starting March 12th.  The HUB’s Maria Anderson has the story of how DJUSD has responded to these guidelines and what is in store for the community.  

Maria Anderson: Davis Joint Unified School District held a regular conference meeting on March 3rd, where they decided their response to the updated CDPH guideline.  Throughout talk, they decided to lift the indoor mask mandate for every individual in schools, in correspondence with the rest of California schools, according to Principal of Davis Senior High School, Tom McHale.

McHale: “The Board of Education discussed the California Public Health guidance and took into consideration our local interest and concerns and announced that our district would remove the indoor mask mandate, throughout our district, effective on Monday, April 11th, 2022.”

Maria: Teachers across schools in Davis have a variety of emotions regarding this new guideline.  Some feel excited, others worried, and some with mixed feelings.  Sherri Sandberg, a science teacher at Davis High shares her opinion. 

Sandberg:“I do feel kind of conflicted. I feel like we do spend a lot of our time in close proximity to each other and masks make sure that we don’t end up getting back to where we were before.”

Maria: English teacher, Gwenyth Bruch at DHS, is rather delighted by this change. 

Bruch: “I will be so so so happy when we don’t have to wear them but I want to hear that from scientists, saying Gwynth, you can take off that mask and you can be with people.” 

Maria: Bruch mainly emphasizes the role of scientists in making these decisions, regarding the pandemic.

Bruch: “I think that we have to trust the scientists and if scientists were in on yes we won’t have to have masks indoors then that’s all that we need because they know what they are talking about.”

Maria: Josephine Eberle, a teacher for a variety of classes at Emerson Junior High, mentions what she believes she has chosen as a result of this change.

Eberle: “I guess that I’m kind of curious to see how the kids handle it, I know that I’m going to keep wearing mine….I’m guessing that a lot of teachers are going to keep theirs on because we just can’t get sick, if we get sick, there’s nobody to cover the classes.”

Maria: Eberle expressed her joy with waiting to lift the mandate till after Spring Break.

Eberle: “It was inevitable.  I’m glad that they decided to wait until 2 weeks after Spring break, (I was worried that they wouldn’t do that), especially with UC Davis ending the precedent for the mask mandate at the beginning of Spring Break.”

Maria: But Eberle isn’t the only teacher who agrees with the Spring Break wait, Sandberg also mentioned her thought.

Eberle: “We’re so close to the end of the school year, I think that it’s a good idea to wait till the end of spring break to see if it happens to have an uptick, maybe we’ll find out it’s not.”

Maria: McHale mentioned that whether or not teachers or students are comfortable with this new guideline, the decision is theirs.
McHale: “It’s really important for everyone to know that although the mandate will be lifted, it’s still a personal choice, whether you want to wear a mask or not, outdoors or indoors.  We want to respect that, we want to support everyone in their personal decision.”

Maria: As mentioned by teachers about the positives with the mandate being lifted after specifically Spring Break, McHale states this is a good preparation time.  

McHale: “We always have to be mindful about possible surges in COVID, so having it at that time of April 11th, gives us some time to prepare for it, make sure that we have good information out to our families, and students and staff, and also, be able to respond if we need to to any surge that might happen.”

Maria: Matt Best, the Interim Superintendent of DJUSD, mentioned the issue of division relating to the pandemic in general, on top of the lifted mask mandate.

Best: “We know that there are going to be divisions in terms of some people agree with that shift, some people don’t.  And we have been seeing all across our nation, our state, our community are divided on issues related to the pandemic.”

Maria: With Woodland also dropping their mask mandate, they decide to mention something specific and this came from Public Information Officer of Yolo County, John Fout.

Fout: “But one thing that we’ve consistently said is that we STRONGLY recommend everyone continues to mask until the case rate in Yolo County falls below 7 per 100,000… even though masks are no longer required, we still want to STRONGLY recommend everyone wears a mask.”

Maria: Making this guideline change for Yolo County wasn’t an issue and actually was simple for one main reason, as Fout said.

Fout: “One of the big reasons why we didn’t have a problem with switching from required to STRONGLY recommended was two things happened that we hadn’t seen before in the pandemic: first, we had a new variant that although it was more contagious, it was actually less severe, particularly if you were vaccinated and boosted. … and then second, we had a decoupling of cases from hospitalizations.”

Maria: Best understands how there are opinions from both sides of the matter that affect people’s feelings in our towns’ community, specifically with students and staff. 

Best: “We know that removing masks for some will be a welcome change, and it will be anxiety-producing for others, and there will be some others who will welcome the continuation of the masking mandate for a few more weeks.”

Maria: As an update from DJUSD, on March 11th, there was an emergency school board meeting where the mask mandate being lifted on April 11th, 2022 was officially decided upon. For BlueDevilHUB.com, this is Maria Anderson reporting.

Max: Video games are one of the most popular passions for 21st century teenagers. Next up, Julian Dunn has a look at this slice of high school life.

Julian: When it comes to teenage hobbies video games tend to be the cream of the crop of pastimes. Some take it more seriously than others. For senior Balen Apostolidis gaming acts as a way to destress himself 

Apostolidis: “It’s sorta my way of relaxing, I get on whenever I can a this point”

Julian: I asked him what got him into video games?

Apostolidis: “When I was 14 I got my first xbox, ordered my first game titan fall 2 easily my favorite game of all time still is. That really introduced me into fps, first person shooters and just overall movement and it really got me into that community because I would meet people online from all over the world which was really cool. It was really the first game and console I got into.”

Julian: He says that the current games he plays now are a reflection of his favorites from when he was younger.

Apostolidis: “Definitely Apex Legends the reason I play that the most is because it’s based in the same universe as TitanFall so I have a really sentimental thing with that game and the whole vibe with it”

For senior Antonio Soto, gaming translates to its own community on the E sports Team

Soto: “I first heard about it was actually during the announcements and it was somewhere near January or February, is when we first started it there weren’t a lot of people, it was probably like 6 including me. We play a Davinci because that’s the school that is most supporting DHS does announce it and stuff but the school that is most supporting where we have an area to play in is at least for the first season was Davinci. The school recently funded for 6 computers to be bought the school funded it Although we don’t get them right now just because it has to go through a bunch of district people and they have to say okay lets do this thing but its pretty much a guarantee a least for next season.”

Julian: They both commented on where they see the future of technology in the Gaming industry going:

Soto: “I saw a recent video about it it was on youtube I think where they got a full body like you can feel the wind kinda thing on your body you would have to put suit on an that looks so cool but scary at the same time”

Apostolidis: “Now that the quote on quote metaverse is evolving and like you can build your own character in the metaverse that’s basically going to be an online oasis I feel like and it’s kinda going to be like a different planet it’s hard to explain but it’s literally going to be an online planet for everyone”

Julian: For Blue Devil HUB I’m Julian Dunn.

Well, that’s our show for today. The News Cycle is a production of the BlueDevilHUB in association with the Davis Enterprise, Daniel Ruiz-Jimenez writes our theme music. The program is produced by Stella Maze and Max Davis-Housefield, our executive producer is Jihan Moon.

Stay safe, have a good week, and we will see you next time.