MARMET, W.Va. — Cindy Schilling, the principal at Marmet Elementary School in Kanawha County could tell the students arriving to the classroom on Thursday had a little pep in their step. Thursday marked the first day for students in Kanawha County without a mandatory mask mandate due to COVID-19.
Kanawha County Schools announced earlier this week that its mask guidance went from mandatory to optional for students and staff “as Kanawha County and KCS positive case numbers are going down after the increase during the winter holidays.” Wednesday marked a professional learning day with no school for students.
“When the kids came in this morning (Thursday) they were very happy to have them off. They were smiling, we could see them smiling. The kids were anxious to show me their braces and lost teeth,” Schilling said.
Schilling told MetroNews anxiety levels were high among students this school year due to the mandate.
She said the anxiety could be seen in learning, especially in reading and spelling comprehension. Teachers reported to Schilling on Thursday that they’ve “already seen huge gains” in learning with masks off.
“They could not see how we were shaping our mouths, lips and tongues to make letter sounds, they couldn’t see it. When you are teaching a four-year-old what an ‘S’ sounds like and they can’t see your mouth, it was very detrimental,” Schilling said.
Schilling reported three staff members and around 5% of her 120 students remained wearing masks. Administrators made a point to teach kids about respecting other people’s decisions with masking.
The principal said she supports parents’ choice and the school system’s move to optional.
“We’ve gone over with the kids that some kids are still going to have their masks on. That’s a personal choice or parent choice,” Schilling said.
“We wanted to make sure that no one was saying anything to them that would hurt feelings. We didn’t want the masked children saying anything mean to the unmasked and the other way around.”
At Nitro High School, between 10 and 15% of students remained wearing masks Thursday, according to principal Jason Redman.
Redman said for the most part, students followed the mandatory mask mandate throughout this school year.
“I’m not saying we didn’t have any fights with students but for the most part, students followed the masks mandates. We had to remind them every day, of course. We went through a lot of masks…a lot of masks,” he said.
On Wednesday, the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department confirmed 420 active COVID-19 cases in the county. On Jan. 23, active cases in Kanawha County were above 2,700, according to the state Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) dashboard.
Statewide, active COVID-19 cases are at their lowest levels since fall. Redman said at Nitro, the pattern is similar to the county and state patterns.
“We had some big spikes that seemed to drop off. Currently, I just did my most recent report into the state and we have had two cases in the last seven days,” he said.
The school system noted in its announcement it will still participate in daily and weekly reporting of positive cases “so that parents and staff know current conditions in their schools.”
School boards in Wayne, Wood, Harrison, Jefferson and Morgan counties have also voted in the last week to lift mask requirements for students and staff.
Gov. Jim Justice said during his coronavirus briefing on Thursday that he supports moving away from mask mandates.
“I would be a real proponent of us moving forward without those crazy masks on our kids,” Justice said.