The city council decides to extend Mayor Erin Mendenhall’s declaration of emergency.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) A sign regarding masks at Hawthorne Elementary School in Salt Lake City on Monday, August 30, 2021.
Salt Lake City City Council voted Tuesday evening to extend the mask mandate for schools until at least the spring break.
The vote took place during the last scheduled council meeting in 2021. Without this measure, the mask requirement, first introduced by Mayor Erin Mendenhall in August, would have ended with the return of the K-12 students from the winter break on January 3rd.
Salt Lake City School District officials urged the city council to raise the issue to provide clarity for students, parents and teachers.
The council unanimously supported the extension of the declaration of emergency and some members pointed to updated coronavirus numbers to explain their vote.
“Many Salt Lake City residents understand and believe that masks work,” said council vice chairman Chris Wharton. “But I think this is further evidence that our districts are still down in number and that children, staff and teachers are safer than in other districts.”
There have been 358 cases of high school students in the Salt Lake City school district in the past 14 days, according to reports published Tuesday by Dr. Angela Dunn, the executive director of the county health department, published figures that the lowest of the five counties in Salt Lake County is.
And Salt Lake City schools had 3,131 cases in the past 105 days, which is the lowest number in the county.
The Salt Lake district is the only one with a mask requirement.
Murray School District had the highest number of COVID-19 cases this year, at 4,665. Jordan County had the most cases in the past two weeks, with 584.
The vaccination rates for students aged 12 and over are roughly similar in the districts. Murray is 65%, Salt Lake City and the Canyons School District is 64%, Granite District is 63%, and Jordan is 60%.
Salt Lake City schools have a higher rate of 19% for students ages 5-11, followed by Canyons (14%), Murra (13%), Granite (10%), and Jordan (8%).
The city council’s action extends the mask mandate until March 25, when the spring break begins.
“I hope we can keep people safe for the remainder of the cold and flu season,” Wharton said.
Mendenhall issued the mask mandate in August, just a few days before the start of classes. It applies to all students and employees at public, charter, and private K-12 schools in the city. Masks must be worn in schools and buses, except during lunch breaks, during sporting activities or when communicating with a deaf or hard of hearing person.
Her move was controversial, drew criticism from state lawmakers and some fear of retaliation in the coming legislative term. Lawmakers had banned school districts from issuing their own mandate.
House majority leader Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, criticized Mendenhall’s move on Facebook, saying a mayor could only issue such a mandate if there was a disaster or a public safety threat.
“There is no public safety threat, no disaster, and no justifiable threat of disaster [Mendenhall’s] It is compulsory to order masks in schools, ”wrote Schultz. “… This disturbing pattern of issuing orders and exercising authority granted by emergency authority MUST be stopped.”
Legislature has taken no action to stop the mask mandate in Salt Lake City schools.
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