Brewer Schools Will Reverse Their Mask Policy, Hampden To Re-Vote

Brewer has reversed its plan for fall.

Recently, most schools around Maine have started to announce their policies regarding masks for the fall. Bangor announced they would be masking in the fall. Hermon announced they would not. Brewer had also done the same thing originally, but has now reversed course, says WABI.

The reason being, according to Superintendent Gregg Palmer, is that with the revised Maine CDC guidelines, if all students are masked, then people who come in close contact with a positive case will not have to quarantine. That way, it will keep everyone in school, and should drastically reduce, or hopefully eliminate the need to go remote.

Not everyone will be happy, but that seems to be the case with a lot of things these days. But we should all do anything to keep the schools open and going this year. No one wants more remote learning. Especially the students and the teachers.

So what's all the kerfuffle in Hampden? Didn't they vote masks down?

It's true. Last week, the RSU #22 Board voted down mask-wearing at a recent meeting. However, Superintendent Regan Nickels said there was a clerical error in the voting. Apparently, each person on the board who votes has a certain amount of "points". Two board members were accidentally given extra points in the vote, according to WABI.

Had those two people received the right number of votes, the policy to not wear masks would not have passed. So a re-vote is going to take place immediately. The initial plan was the K-6 would all wear masks, and that 7-12 would wait until Penobscot or Waldo counties hit the red or orange level. There's an emergency school board meeting on August 24 to have another proper vote on the plan.