Beginning March 9, 2022, The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has lifted masking requirements for students, staff and visitors to archdiocesan Catholic schools located in the District of Columbia.
The decision to lift the requirement follows the D.C. health department’s March 8 announcement that “most people no longer need to wear masks indoors or outdoors at educational facilities” unless COVID-19 community levels are high.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser tweeted that DC Health’s “guidance lifts the indoor mask mandate and allows child care providers and (local educational agencies) … to set their own mask requirements.”
The District’s Department of Public Schools said that it will continue to require students and staff to wear masks indoors at public schools in the city. Catholic and other private schools, charter schools and day care facilities in the city can determine whether or not they will require masks to be worn in their buildings.
“Following Mayor Bowser’s recent communication making mask mandates a local decision, Archdiocesan Catholic schools in the District of Columbia will no longer require face coverings for students, staff, or visitors beginning March, 9, 2022,” Kelly Branaman, the archdiocese’s Secretary for Catholic Schools and Superintendent of Schools, said in a statement. “Depending on the needs of each school’s leaders to prepare, schools will transition between March 9 and March 14.”
With the District’s announcement, masking requirements have been lifted in all archdiocesan Catholic schools within the jurisdictions that comprise The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington. The archdiocese has more than 25,500 students enrolled in 90 Catholic schools, from preschool through high school located in the District of Columbia and five Maryland counties: Montgomery, Prince George’s, Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s.
In both Prince George’s County and the District, masks are no longer required for most indoor settings, but are still required to be worn by public school students, staff and visitors in those jurisdictions. Also on March 8, Montgomery County officials lifted masking requirements for its public schools.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington on Feb. 21 lifted masking requirement for students, staff and visitors to Catholic schools in the five Maryland counties that comprise part of the archdiocese. However, the masking requirement for Catholic schools in the District of Columbia remained in place until the March 8 directive.
At the time the masking mandates were lifted for archdiocesan Catholic schools in Maryland, Branaman said the use of face coverings will be “voluntary and optional.”
“We appreciate and will fully support whatever decisions that parents make for their own children regarding whether to wear a face covering in school or not. Enforcement of this decision is between parent and child, not school personnel,” she said at that time.
Since March 2020 – when the pandemic was first declared – Catholic schools implemented safety protocols and teaching strategies to ensure the wellbeing of students and staff. Those protocols included health screenings, following the masking mandates of the varied jurisdictions that comprise the archdiocese, limiting visitors to the schools and adopting different teaching methods such as hybrid and distance learning.
After school campuses closed as a precaution in the spring of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many Catholic schools in the archdiocese reopened for in-person learning that fall, while other schools offered virtual or hybrid classes. During the current 2021-22 school year, all Catholic schools in the archdiocese have reopened for in-person learning.
As of March 1, The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington no longer required Mass-goers to wear a mask while attending church. That was when masking requirements for most indoor spaces were lifted in Prince George’s County and the District of Columbia. They were the final two jurisdictions in the archdiocese to rescind mask requirements for indoor settings except for schools and childcare facilities.
