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State, Burlington Schools, Drop Mask Mandate for School Transportation

Students in most Massachusetts communities, including Burlington, will no longer need to don facemasks to get to and from schools.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health said on March 1 that due to changes in guidance at the federal level “masks are not required for school buses or vans for early child care or K-12 school settings.”

This comes on the heels of the state lifting the school mask mandate on Monday, February 28 for all Massachusetts public schools. In both cases the state guidance specified that local districts could keep mandates for masks in school or on public transportation if they thought it was in the best interest of their community due to local conditions with th COVID-19 virus.

“This came about due to the CDC decision last Friday,” Thomas A. Scott, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents said of the DPH announcement. “It does allow local districts to make the determination to maintain masks on buses if they choose.”

In Burlington, however, school leaders said they were dropping both the in-school and school transportation mandates for students in the district.

Students and schools will still have to keep masks handy in the event of a student needing to visit a school’s nurse’s office. The federal regulations still require the wearing of masks in all healthcare facilities.