H-D, CAL boards adjust schools’ mask mandates

The Hampton-Dumont and CAL school districts have amended the schools’ mask ordinance to exclude a certain face covering.

Both the H-D and CAL Boards of Education voted to prohibit the use of neck gaiters as a protective face covering. Gaiters are worn around an individual’s neck with a portion of the fabric meant to be pulled over the nose and mouth.

H-D and CAL Superintendent Todd Lettow said the recommendation to prohibit neck gaiters came from a Center for Disease Control (CDC) advisory that gaiters are not an overly effective face covering for limiting the spread of the virus.

“The reason they’re (CDC) saying that is because generally, those are just a very thin material and it’s only one layer,” he said. “Most of the masks are two layers, so we are just following the CDC guidelines.”

Lettow said that one reason for prohibiting gaiters is due to a recommendation handed down by the State of Iowa that if a student tests positive and was found to be in close contact with another student or teacher, only the individual who tested positive would have to quarantine if both were wearing CDC recommended face coverings.

“If there is a positive case, we want to make sure our kids were wearing the appropriate masks so he or she wouldn’t have to quarantine,” he said. “It’s just one of those CDC recommendations we want to comply with. We keep learning more and more things and we want to adjust as they come.”