Flint Hills Technical College has suspended its mandatory mask use policy as a COVID-19 mitigation strategy.
College President Caron Daugherty says administrators were tracking policy changes, especially at the federal level, all last week. Once the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its approach from relying largely on COVID caseload numbers to a combination of caseload, hospitalizations and hospital capacity late last week, the college decided to use a mask-optional approach effective Monday. Daugherty says the only possible change back to mandatory mask use would be if Lyon County returns to a high COVID risk.
The decision by Flint Hills Technical College follows a rapid shift on local mask use policies from mandated to recommended, especially in Emporia. Last week, Emporia State University announced it was making mask use optional in most settings effective Tuesday. The USD 253 Emporia Board of Education stepped up its timeline for optional mask use Monday, essentially going optional effective Tuesday instead of last week’s plan of March 28.
Other Lyon County schools have gone with varying plans throughout the academic year, but all now have mask use as optional. USD 251 North Lyon County, USD 252 Southern Lyon County and Emporia Christian School all had optional mask use policies since August, while Sacred Heart was planning to transition to optional mask use in January before the omicron wave caused record caseload activity across the area. Optional mask use began Monday for Sacred Heart.
