Woodside Elementary School teachers and students will no longer be required to wear masks to class come March 14.

The district of around 365 students announced in an email to families on Friday, March 4, that it will follow state guidelines lifting the requirement to wear a face mask inside schools at the end of the day on Friday, March 11. Masks will continue to be recommended in local classrooms.

"No one should make assumptions regarding someone's beliefs or health status based upon their choice to wear or not wear a mask, nor should they comment on them," Superintendent Steve Frank said.

It joins the neighboring Portola Valley School District, which opted earlier this week to drop its mask mandate on March 14.

The Sequoia Union High, Ravenswood City, Menlo Park City and Las Lomitas school districts are still mulling whether they'll follow the state guidance.

The Menlo Park district's board plans to discuss dropping the mandate at its Tuesday, March 8, board meeting.

Superintendent credits masks with helping to prevent spread of COVID

The Woodside district has seen 89 COVID-19 cases among students and staff since the beginning of this school year. (There was just one case reported to the school this week.)

Frank noted that with the help of a robust contact tracing program, it was firmly determined that all but two cases were acquired outside of school.

"The remaining two cases remain uncertain," he said. "The point of sharing this data is to clearly show the effectiveness of mask-wearing in combatting the spread of COVID in schools."

According to research cited the state health department, the masking requirement in California schools has allowed them to keep schools open when compared to other parts of the country.

California accounts for roughly 12% of all U.S. students but accounted for only 1% of COVID-19 related school closures during the omicron surge. Nationally during the Delta surge in July and August 2021, jurisdictions without mask requirements in schools experienced larger increases in pediatric case rates, and school outbreaks were 3.5 times more likely there.

"The change in masking guidance reflects CDPH (California Department of Public Health)'s approach to rolling back safety measures now that COVID-19 conditions have improved across the state," he said. "According to CDPH, these decisions are based on science and data, including case and hospitalization rates. As conditions continue to improve, CDPH will move to less restrictive guidance. If the state experiences another spike, then CDPH could pivot back to requiring masks in schools and elsewhere."

In San Mateo County, cases have fallen 60% over the last two weeks, with an average of 163 cases per day as of Monday, Feb. 28, according to county data. Hospitalizations were also down 37% over the last two weeks. The county has roughly 760,000 residents.