Flagler Schools Will Keep Mask Rules In Effect, Making them Voluntary in Summer

David Bossardet, the district’s safety coordinator, outlined the plan to the Flagler County School Board at a workshop on Tuesday. He was updating the board on the district’s approach, not seeking the board’s approval: the masking requirement is in Superintendent Cathy Mittelstadt’s administrative purview. But Bossardet and Mittlestadt made a point of clarifying where all school districts stood in relation to Monday’s executive order by Gov. Ron DeSantis overriding and nullifying most local masking regulations.

“That order doesn’t necessarily affect anything we’re doing as a school system,” Bossardet said. “It is my recommendation to plan moving forward to continue with our current safety precautions, including face coverings. But once we move into our summer programming and summer planning, which would be June 5 I believe is that Monday, we would make face coverings optional.”

He explained: “I’m satisfied with the direction we’re heading as far as what’s happening on our campuses from a confirmed case standpoint. I know there’s angst out there from the community, and a lot of people and rightfully so are trying to get back to that sense of normalcy, and have that flexibility. And we want to get there as much as anybody. I just don’t think the four weeks left we mess with doing anything we’ve had in place.”

The Flagler County Health Department is in support of the district’s direction. Bossardet said “there’s a lot of opinions out there and, and conflicting information. But I personally think we’re right where we need to be for the next four weeks to finish out.” It was the position the school district took




Graduation is taking place at the Ocean center in Daytona Beach for both Flagler Palm Coast High School and Matanzas High School. There will also be promotion ceremonies in every school, with live-streaming for parents, who will not be allowed on campus for those ceremonies. “Obviously we understand the parents want to be part of that, it is definitely a special opportunity for those students,” Bossardet said. “A lot of our campuses, it’s impossible to accommodate that many people on campus at one point, especially when you look at guidelines. We did feel it’s important, and the principles felt it’s important to remain consistent, amongst all of our schools.”

School Board member Jill Woolbright said the limitations on in-person attendance for promotions generated numerous calls to her from parents. The superintendent said “creative leaders” are working within constraints to be as accommodating as possible. “Where there’s a will there’s a way, so maybe there’ll be reconsideration,” School Board member Colleen Conklin said. “Hopefully it will be consistent throughout the district.”

School Board member Janet McDonald has opposed mask-wearing since the start of the pandemic (“kids should never be masked,” she said, contrary to Centers for Disease Control guidelines) and inaccurately considers masks an ineffective way to limit the spread of covid-19. She said she was “really disappointed” by the district’s approach, going on to make false or misleading statements with almost every sentence she spoke.

“It’s an executive order. We are a governmental agency. The Health Department is a bureaucratic agency. They are not a governmental agency,” she said, inaccurately: the Health Department is an extension of the governor’s executive branch. The Health Department is not issuing the order. DeSantis is, and DeSantis specifically applied the order to counties and municipalities, not school districts. “We have choice in most places,” McDonald continued. “End of the year, with all of these special events, we have the latitude to do something different. Because the real data that’s out there is good. And just to keep people in a controlled mindset is not healthy for them.”




McDonald then again compared Covid to “monitoring a cold,” also a long-discredited falsehood, and disparaged the Health Department as “an agency that’s not not in service to the community.”

McDonald was also called the county’s health data favorable, only to be corrected by Board member Cheryl Massaro: “22 percent of our kids have covid,” Massaro said, “so yes, we have a we have a problem.” Actually, the cumulative number of Flagler County children younger than 18 who have tested positive is 5,695, or nearly 30 percent of the county’s 19,000 people younger than 18. But that’s since the beginning of the pandemic. The overwhelming majority have recovered, though it remains unclear how many are considered “long-haulers”–covid survivors who develop chronic ill effects for long after the infection.

Children do not get as sick as adults, older adults especially, when they contract covid, but they do pass on the virus to adults, especially if they’re older than 9. The district has been limiting the the number of people on campus during the school day as part of an an agreement with teachers and support staff. The district will continue to operate at 50 percent capacity for outdoor events and 20 percent capacity at indoor events.

“I’m glad to hear that at least come summertime, we’ll go into optional,” Conklin said. “And I really do hope next year. We’re done with this.”