FRANKLIN COUNTY, N.C. — Franklin, Moore, Northampton, Chatham, and Edgecombe County school districts were to decide Monday if masks will continue to be required or mandatory. 

Johnston and Cumberland County schools will start making masks optional this month.

A mom, Connie Jo Hutchinson, says she has been going to the school board meetings in Franklin County all school year. She wants masks to be optional.

"These masks are not helpful, and it's abusive to keep them on our kids," Hutchinson said. "Some of the things that the school board has talked about time and time again is how these masks are impacting the youngest kids when they are trying to read and write, and they can't see their teachers faces. How are they supposed to do that?"

Hutchinson homeschooled her son last school year while he was in eighth grade because he didn't want to wear a mask. Now, he is back in school and wearing a mask.

"As his mom, I'm going to fight the fight to make his life as normal as it can be," Hutchinson said.

Currently, in Franklin County schools if there is a positive COVID-19 outbreak in the classroom there does not need to be a quarantine if there is a mask-to-mask exposure.

School districts are required by law in North Carolina to publicly vote on their mask policy every month. 

The CDC still lists vaccinations and masks are the top two ways the protect against COVID-19.