Seymour Community Schools will no longer require masking and instead make masks optional after a unanimous board of education vote Tuesday.

Superintendent Brandon Harpe gave an update to the school board during a meeting at the service center at 1420 Corporate Way.

He said the Indiana Department of Health updated its guidance Feb. 17 for masks to be optional inside the state’s schools. Due to the new guidance, Seymour schools would no longer have to contact trace or quarantine.

Making masks optional also would apply to Seymour school buses, Harpe said.

“As we’ve known all along throughout the nearly (two) years of this pandemic, we have followed the advice of the state health department and local health officials,” Harpe said.

“This change gave us another opportunity to do the same, so on Monday, Feb. 21, we changed our mitigation strategy to align with the state’s guidance.”

Last month, Trustee Jeff Joray made a motion to end the school’s previous mask mandate and instead use a policy used by Crown Point Community School Corp. where masks were optional.

The school board voted 6-1 to stay with the school’s COVID mitigation strategy with Joray casting the dissenting vote.

At that meeting, Harpe said the Indiana Department of Health issued new guidance that allowed for schools with mask mandates to not have to contact trace.

Board Vice President Nancy Franke said she was unsure if the school corporation would have to contact trace if there was a policy change.

As of Wednesday, Jackson County is at a 0.5, or blue, level of risk for COVID infection and has a positivity rate of 3.9%, according to data from the state’s COVID-19 dashboard.