CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – The Clarksville-Montgomery County School Board unanimously voted to end its mask mandate Tuesday evening based on the improvement of COVID-19 numbers in the area.
The mask mandate has been in effect in the district since Sept. 14 after an especially heated board meeting ended with board members and parents shouting at one another.
Case reduction
Board member Charlie Patterson, who originally proposed the measure on a temporary basis in September, made the motion to vacate the mandate Tuesday evening.
“I’d like to thank each individual in the school system that – from the students all the way up to the director – for the way they handled the temporary mask mandate,” Patterson said Tuesday.
“It helped us reduce our COVID numbers, and the vaccination helped us also, and I’d like to thank each individual for that, for getting us into the orange color on the state map.”
Montgomery County is one of several counties in Tennessee that have been downgraded from a red or “high” level of community transmission to an orange or “substantial” level of community transmission based on data from the CDC.
Active cases have been on the steady decline for the last month. On Oct. 10, there were 857 active cases in Montgomery County, and as of Monday, Nov. 8, there were 238 according to the Montgomery County COVID-19 Dashboard Hub.
“I feel that we need to vacate it at this time since our numbers have shown reduction and that we look at it again back in the formal session in January to see if there’s any changes over the holidays,” Patterson told fellow board members.
This January 2022 review date was part of Patterson’s initial proposal in September, in addition to the ability for CMCSS students and employees to opt out as per Gov. Bill Lee’s executive order.
There was no discussion from other board members on Patterson’s measure, and the board voted unanimously.
As part of Patterson’s measure, the review of the mask mandate will be held at the first School Board formal meeting of the new year on Jan. 11.
