“I could cry, I’m so excited. The kids are so excited. The staff is so excited. And there’s such a renewed sense of energy in the building today,” said Jennifer Curry, principal at Sandshore Elementary School in Mount Olive on Monday. She gleefully greeted her students — many grinning broadly, some still masked — as they headed to class. With the statewide mandate lifted and masks now optional in schools, parents in many schools could choose whether their children would mask up; many opted to leave masks at home Monday.
The state Department of Education doesn’t track how many districts ditched masks. A new Rutgers-Eagleton Poll shows more than two-thirds of New Jersey residents agree it’s time to lift the mask mandate. However, some families felt less sure. “I feel it’s not the time. I feel it’s too soon,” said Mount Olive mom Dawn Pierson. The state’s COVID-19 activity map shows only six counties are green, meaning they have a low level of COVID-19 activity; the rest show as yellow, indicating moderate activity. Some major school districts — including Camden, Paterson and Newark — have opted to keep mask mandates in place.
