Since March 2020, children have tackled remote learning, hybrid learning 6 feet apart with masks, in-person schooling 3 feet apart with masks, isolation and quarantines.
Soon, maybe before the second anniversary of the start of pandemic restrictions, they may experience something unusual: each other's faces.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said there is a "very strong possibility" she will lift the mask mandate in schools March 7.
But there are two weeks to go before March 7 and many students are on a mid-winter break this week.
We are close to the end of the Omicron variant’s surge through New York. That storm of December and January has become a drizzle now. But be sure of this: Spend enough time in it, and you can still get soaked.
Hochul said the week they come back, she will look at a handful of metrics in deciding the future of masks in schools. One of them is cases in schools. Right now, Covid-19 infections are plummeting.
Total cases among children and adults in 38 public school districts in Erie and Niagara counties were averaging 72 a day in mid-February. The rate has not been that low since last fall. There was an average of 990 cases a day during the week of Jan. 10, amid the Omicron variant surge. Many districts that had been plagued with staff shortages because of sickness and quarantines last month now have days when they report no cases.
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"We had three cases in the last week," Niagara Falls Superintendent Mark Laurrie said.
In January, there were days when Niagara Falls reported more than 40 cases.
Buffalo Public Schools reported more than 200 cases on some days during the surge, including 343 on Jan. 10, according to the New York State Health Department school Covid-19 dashboard. On Wednesday, there were just four.
Thousands of rapid tests have been distributed to children to take home while they go on mid-winter break this week. Hochul said she wants students to take the test on the day they return to school, Feb. 28, and three days later.
The governor said she will be looking at a number of metrics during the week of Feb. 28. In addition to reports of Covid-19 positive cases in students, she said she will look at cases per 100,000 population; percent positivity; hospital admissions, including pediatric admissions; vaccination rates; and global trends on the coronavirus.
As neighboring states have already announced the end of mask mandates in school, students, parents and educators here are getting anxious.
More than one parent has said, "Once they come off, they're not going back on."
"It's time to let it go. It's time to let it be a local decision," Laurrie said. "We’re going to let it go as soon as possible. We’ll do it in the middle of the day, if that’s the case."
Lots of parents feel the same way.
New York State is fielding multiple lawsuits from parents demanding that the mask mandate be dropped. One case that threw out the mandate is in the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, and more have been filed this month.
"Gov. Hochul and the Department of Health remain committed to doing everything possible to keep children, teachers and staff safe, and our schools open," a Hochul spokesman said Saturday.
A group of 16 parents, nearly half of them from Western New York, filed a lawsuit Feb. 11 in State Supreme Court in Westchester County against the governor, state Health Department and other state officials.
The suit contends that masks harm children, and that there is no data to support the continued masking of children in day care and schools. It asks that the mandate be set aside and nullified.
"Our suit challenges the efficacy of masking so that masks can not come off and then back on again at the whim of the governor at whatever metrics she chooses," Dana Hensley, a Williamsville parent who is one of the plaintiffs, said in an email.
"The kids are really tired of it and it's very frustrating," she said.
Parents from 14 school districts in central and Western New York signed onto a federal lawsuit Feb. 8 in Buffalo against the governor, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz and county Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein, among others, seeking to end the "barbaric practice" of forcing children to wear masks in school.
Two Erie County parents sought a declaratory judgment in State Supreme Court on Feb. 8 to vacate an emergency regulation from the state Health Department that requires students wear masks in schools.
"It's not natural," Laurrie said of children wearing masks, adding that the controversy over masks has become a tremendous distraction. "High school kids can't read each others facial expression, kids can't see the formation of words in elementary school."
What will happen with Covid-19 cases when kids come back to school Feb. 28, after being on break for a week?
If history is any guide, there may be more cases in school that week. Last year, the number of cases in Erie and Niagara county schools reported to New York State after vacations increased. They went up 37% the week after the February recess. The number went down the following week.
But conditions are not exactly the same because last year, children could not be vaccinated.
And if the governor does lift the mask mandate, some will continue to wear face coverings in school.
"No shame, no bullying," Laurrie said.
In Niagara Falls' elementary summer school last year, masks were not mandatory, but seven out of 10 kids wore them, he said. There was one case of Covid-19 reported, he said.
Making masks optional "would be just one more gigantic step to normalcy," he said.
