The Wappingers Central School District wants to make its own call on mask-wearing in its schools.

The district's leadership sent a letter to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins on Wednesday, asking that the governor's executive order that mandates in-person restrictions like mask wearing be overturned, and to let public health decisions "be made at the local level as was the standard procedure prior to the pandemic." 

District Superintendent Dwight Bonk sent the letters as temperatures soared across the Hudson Valley this week.

“We've had issues of asthmatic episodes, heat rashes, fatigue, headaches, dry throat. I could go on,” Bonk said.

What You Need To Know

  • This week, the state released new guidance giving schools the option to allow kids to take off their masks outdoors, while masking indoors is still required

  • Many of the school buildings in the Wappingers Central School District do not have air conditioning

  • The superintendent says the rising heat, coupled with the indoor mask requirements, has caused students to suffering from heat-related issues

Last week, Health Commissioner Howard Zucker signaled that mask rules for vaccinated and unvaccinated children could ease unless the CDC said otherwise. But school officials received an unsigned email from the State Education Department over the weekend, declaring nothing would change. The guidance was updated to allow districts the option of allowing mask wearing to end outside, though masks would still be required indoors at schools.

Bonk says the rising heat, coupled with the indoor mask requirement, is putting students' health at risk.

“During the past couple of weeks, we have seen heat-related issues that we believe, basically, have occurred, or have been exacerbated, due to mask-wearing. These issues have impacted our students, as well as our staff,” says Bonk. “We don't have air conditioners in many of our buildings. The buildings were the, the most recent building was built in 1968.”

District leaders claim their concerns are the confusion from last week regarding mask wearing in schools, and many of the district's buildings not having air conditioning due to being constructed before 1968.

"The requirement to wear a mask has contributed to health issues for those students and staff who have respiratory issues, asthmatic conditions and other heat-sensitivity ailments," the letter states. "We have had cases where this has occurred, impacting both students and staff over the past couple of weeks."

He believes that the state should allow school districts to work with their local county health departments to develop appropriate standards that are deemed safe for the students and faculty of each school.

He says, “No two schools are alike. And what may work in one district, and what quite frankly, may even work in one school, may not work in another because the conditions are totally different.”

We reached out to the state Department of Health for a reaction.

"Our updated guidance must be followed by all public and private Pre-K-12 schools in New York state, and still requires masks to be worn inside schools," the DOH stated. "As the guidance states, 'students who are unable to medically tolerate a mask, including students where such mask would impair their physical health or mental health, are not subject to the required use of a mask.' Guidance for next school year is forthcoming."