CDC: Masks Not Required for Vaccinated Teachers, Students

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its guidelines for COVID-19 prevention in K–12 schools on Friday. The health organization announced that fully vaccinated teachers and students will not be required to wear masks inside school buildings. The CDC website calls vaccination “the leading public health prevention strategy” to end the pandemic, and it continues to recommend masks for individuals who are not fully vaccinated, as well as at least 3 feet of distance between students when in the classroom.

Children as young as 12 years old are now eligible for the COVID vaccine. For students younger than 12, the CDC recommends “layers of protection” including masks, social distancing, hand-washing, and suggestions of weekly COVID testing.

“We’re at a new point in the pandemic that we’re all really excited about,” said Erin Sauber-Schatz, leader of the CDC task force that issues recommendations regarding the coronavirus policy. She said that this new point is what prompted the CDC to relax its restrictions.

However, the CDC stopped short of advising schools to require vaccines for teachers and eligible students before returning to school. It also did not elaborate on how teachers can know which students are vaccinated and which aren’t—nor how parents can know which teachers are vaccinated.

“It would be a very weird dynamic, socially, to have some kids wearing masks and some not,” said Elizabeth Stuart, a Johns Hopkins University public health professor. “And tracking that? Teachers shouldn’t need to be keeping track of which kids should have masks on.”

The Associated Press noted several other complications with the new policy. One involves middle schools, where some students are eligible for vaccines while others aren’t. Instead of sorting students into “vaccinated” and “unvaccinated” classrooms, districts may choose to require masks for all. Similarly, different states have instituted different mandates. Virginia and California, for example, will require all students to mask up at school. Arizona and Texas, on the other hand, have forbidden public institutions from instituting a mask mandate.

CDC guidance is not a legal mandate. Local governments and school districts retain the authority to require masks across the board—or to not require them at all. It’s also up to local officials to decide whether to require proof of vaccination, as well as the logistics of doing so. Sauber-Schatz said that areas with high community spread are highly advised to add mitigation strategies like requiring masks for everyone, vaccinated or not. She said their ultimate guidance is for schools to make decisions that make the most sense.

“The guidance is really written to allow flexibility at the local level,” Sauber-Schatz said.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • K–12 Safety Trends Report Reveals Reliance on Training, Technology

    Wearable safety technology provider CENTEGIX recently released its 2025 School Safety Trends Report, according to a news release. The report is based on more than 265,000 incidents during the 2024–25 school year as reported through the CENTEGIX Safety Platform, used by more than 800 school districts across the U.S.

  • Pangram Secures Funding for AI Detection Technology

    Pangram, which provides technology that detects AI-generated text, recently announced that it has secured nearly $4 million in pre-seed and seed funding, according to a news release. The most recent round of investments, totaling $2.7 million, come on top of the pre-existing seed fund of $1.25 million.

  • Singlewire Software Report Reveals Gaps in K–12 School Entrance Security

    Single Software recently released its first-ever School Entrance Security Report based on more than 500 responses from U.S. school staff members. According to a news release, the findings highlight a gap between K–12 leaders’ wishes for school safety and how safe the schools actually are, as well as the challenges facing students and staff in that goal.

  • Ancient Resilience: How Indigenous Intelligence Shapes the 4Roots Education Building

    As climate change intensifies, educational spaces must evolve beyond basic sustainability toward true resilience – we must design environments that can adapt, respond, and thrive amid shifting, and intensifying, climate hazards. Drawing on indigenous wisdom and nature-based strategies, integrating resilient design offers a path to create learning environments that are not only functional but deeply in tune with their natural surroundings.

Digital Edition