Red Deer school boards make masks mandatory, joining other boards in tightening restrictions

Students from pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 must now wear masks in common indoor areas at Red Deer's public and Catholic schools, both school boards announced over the long weekend.

Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools announced new COVID-19 restrictions on Sunday and Red Deer Public Schools followed suit on Monday. The two school boards serve more than 22,000 students in central Alberta.

Masks are now mandatory on school buses and in indoor areas where physical distancing is not possible. Students seated in rows and distanced from each other may remove masks while in the classroom. Those who cannot wear a mask require a doctor's note.

The new restrictions, which also apply to staff, were prompted by the Alberta government's decision, announced on Friday, to mandate masks in indoor public spaces and workplaces.

The province's indoor masking requirements do not apply to schools, but school boards may set their own policies.

Last month, public and Catholic boards in both Edmonton and Calgary announced that masks would remain mandatory in schools and multiple school boards outside these cities announced mask mandates and further restrictions last week. 

'Extremely difficult' decision

Nicole Buchanan, board chair of Red Deer Public Schools, said she and her fellow trustees are not medical experts, so making a decision on masking was "extremely difficult."

In addition to voting unanimously for the new restrictions, trustees approved a motion expressing "significant concerns and frustrations on the decision-making process imposed on school divisions and the lack of leadership by the government related to mask use."

Buchanan said she has received emails supporting and criticizing the board's decision and some trustees have received threats.

"People are being absolutely cruel to one another," she said.

"For those that have criticized our decision, I apologize. We are doing the very best with the information that we currently have and hopefully we can remain in our buildings for the entire school year."

Mixed reactions from parents

Ashley Skelton, a single mother with a nine-year-old daughter in Red Deer, said a lot of parents are not happy with the public school board's decision.

"My daughter has a learning disability and she struggles with dyslexia, so to put a mask over her face and her teacher's face when she has to read lips, when she's learning how to sound out words and things like that, it hinders her learning," she said.

Skelton said she obtained a mask exemption for her daughter this year, but if everyone else is wearing masks, her daughter could still struggle to read lips or she could feel singled-out.

Hundreds of parents in central Alberta have joined a Facebook group dedicated to opposing the mask restrictions, Skelton said, and some plan to rally outside the public school board's division office on Tuesday afternoon. 

Shauna Smith, a single mother of two boys in Red Deer, one nine and one 12, said she supports the new mask mandates, especially because her youngest son is not yet eligible to receive the vaccine.

"What the school boards have done is in the best interest of everybody — teachers and kids — and I think it's the only shot that we really have at a normal school year right now," she said.

Smith said she respects other parents' opinions, but conversations about school restrictions have become frustrating.

"It just seems like what COVID has done is divided a lot of people," she said.