KENNEBUNK – Masks were to become optional in Regional School Unit 21 schools, beginning Wednesday March 9.

Superintendent of Schools Terri Cooper announced the measure  last week in a newsletter distributed by email to RSU 21 families, staff and others in the community.

A letter also went out to parents dated Wednesday, March 2, the day after the Maine Department of Health and Human Services and Maine Department of Education announced universal masking will no longer be a statewide recommendation in school settings.

“We anticipate that the Maine DOE will update the Standard Operating Procedures,” said Cooper in the newsletter. “RSU 21 will continue to follow those recommendations. Beginning Wednesday, March 9, masks will be optional in all of RSU 21 schools.”

RSU 21’s decision about masking is dependent on continued stability in COVID-19 trends in Maine, including absenteeism, pool testing results, vaccination rates, school case counts and national CDC county ratings, Cooper wrote in the letter to parents.

She said the change in masking comes as Maine and the rest of the nation enter a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, where vaccines, therapeutics, and other interventions highly effective at preventing serious illness and death are widely available. Cooper noted Maine is one of the most highly vaccinated states in the nation, and RSU 21 continues to strongly recommend that all people get vaccinated and boosted.