“Unmask Georgia Students Act” threatens to Atlanta Public Schools implemented a mask-optional policy for all students and staff, beginning on March 1, 2022. The decision comes on the same day that the Georgia Senate voted in favor of the “Unmask Georgia Students Act,” which would prohibit mask mandates in public schools without an option for parents to opt their children out. The bill must still make it through the Georgia House of Representatives before it can be signed into law however.

While both policies seemingly have the same effect, the “Unmask Georgia Students Act” would undercut the authority of APS and other public school districts. In doing so, it would severely weaken the effectiveness of school safety measures and threaten to unnecessarily endanger students and school faculty at Midtown and at other schools across the state.

In his support of the bill, Gov. Kemp stressed the need for parents and students to be able to make the decision on whether or not to wear a mask at school. While Gov. Kemp and many others attempt to frame this issue as a way of empowering parents to make the best decision for their children, the bill effectively serves as a state-wide prohibition on mask mandates in schools. In turn, the state government would strip local school districts of the authority to make decisions that best protect students in their communities.

In December, APS first announced that they were planning to drop their mask mandate starting Feb. 1, 2022 if COVID-19 transmission levels in the community were low enough. The district established a plan for determining whether it was safe to do so using weekly data from Fulton and Dekalb Counties, but continued to impose the mask mandate past Feb. 1 as a result of local transmission levels.

APS has used these same determining factors, as well as updated CDC recommendations for wearing masks in schools, to drop its district-wide mask mandate as COVID-19 cases within the school and the surrounding community decrease. However, this careful approach informed by local COVID-19 trends would be undermined by the proposed state-wide regulation.

By taking the ability to mandate masks in schools out of the hands of local officials, this bill would prevent school districts and individual schools from making informed public safety decisions based on current disease transmission in their specific community. For example, Stewart County has a COVID-19 transmission rate of 2,774 cases per 100,000 people in the last two weeks, while Fulton County has a rate of only 149 cases per 100,000 people. Schools in these communities should not be expected to follow the same approach, and yet prohibiting mask mandates in all public schools prevents schools from responding to spikes in cases and changes in virus transmission with any authority.

After two years of the pandemic, many students and parents may be tired of mask mandates and other school safety measures. Gov. Kemp has argued that it is “past time for a return to normal” in his support of the bill, and while that may sound like a noble idea, prohibiting mask mandates in public schools state-wide is a step backwards in reaching that goal. The careful school safety measures put in place by APS and other districts are what have allowed students to return to in-person schooling in the first place. Putting in place blanket prohibitions on mask mandates across the state prevents local authorities from ensuring that students are able to safely stay in-person and threatens to upend the “normal” we have now.

The understanding that COVID-19 is not going anywhere should not be cause for abandoning current safety measures in pursuit of some bygone definition of normality. Instead, it should inform our decisions in a way that ensures students and local communities can enjoy the closest thing to normal without compromising safety.

While the new mask-optional policy in APS represents a measured step towards normalcy, Gov. Kemp and the lawmakers who support the proposed legislation to prohibit mask mandates are taking this return to normal too far. The purpose of the “Unmask Georgia Students Act” is not to protect students and school faculty, but rather is made evidently clear in the very name of the bill – to unmask students.

While there is nothing wrong with this end result if it is safe to do so, the motivation behind it could have negative implications for school safety and health. This act would prevent APS and other local school districts from reacting to changes in COVID-19 transmission and making informed decisions that protect students, staff and the greater community.