All students will be back for full-time, in-person instruction for the 2021-2022 school year, but all students, educators, staff, and visitors will be required to wear face masks inside school buildings, regardless of vaccination status, for the start of this academic year. 
And, parents or guardians will not be able to opt children out of in-person instruction as was previously allowed for the 2020-2021 school year.
With students, educators, staff, and visitors being required to wear face masks indoors for the start of the 2021-2022 school year, effective Monday, August 9, 2021, masks are required in the indoor premises of all public, private, and parochial preschool, elementary, and secondary school buildings, with limited exceptions as outlined below.
Exceptions to the mask requirement that remain unchanged from the 2020-2021 school year, include:
- When doing so would inhibit the individual’s health, such as when the individual is exposed to extreme heat indoors;
- When the individual has trouble breathing, is unconscious, incapacitated, or otherwise unable to remove a face covering without assistance;
- When a student’s documented medical condition or disability, as reflected in an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or Educational Plan pursuant to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, precludes use of a face covering;
- When the individual is under two (2) years of age;
- When an individual is engaged in an activity that cannot be performed while wearing a mask, such as eating and drinking or playing an instrument that would be obstructed by the face covering;
- When the individual is engaged in high-intensity aerobic or anerobic activity;
- When a student is participating in high-intensity physical activities during a physical education class in a well-ventilated location and able to maintain a physical distance of six feet from all other individuals; or
- When wearing a face covering creates an unsafe condition in which to operate equipment or execute a task.
Other public health guidance for the masks mandate for in-person learning
The Department of Education, in partnership with the Department of Health, has produced a health and safety guidance document detailing recommendations designed to provide a healthy and safe environment for students and staff during the 2021-2022 school year.
These strategies are recommendations, not mandatory standards. The absence of one or more of these strategies should not prevent school facilities from opening for full-day, in-person operation.
Where possible, the Department’s recommendations should be used to develop a layered approach to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, and schools should implement as many layers as feasible.
For full details on these recommendations, refer to the NJ’s Department of Education and the Department of Health’s health and safety guidance for the 2021-2022 school year
The strategies and procedures include:
Vaccination
Most K-12 schools will have a mixed population of fully vaccinated, partially vaccinated, and unvaccinated individuals at any given time, thereby requiring the layering of preventive measures to protect individuals who are not fully vaccinated. Local Education Agencies (LEAs) are encouraged to have a system in place to determine the vaccination status of students and staff, however, if an LEA is unable to determine the vaccination status of individual students or staff, those individuals should be considered not fully vaccinated.
Social Distancing and Cohorting
Though physical distancing recommendations must not prevent a school from offering full-day, full-time, in person learning to all students for the 2021-2022 school year, LEAs should consider implementing physical distancing measures as an effective COVID-19 prevention strategy to the extent they are equipped to do so while still providing regular school operations to all students and staff in-person.
During periods of high community transmission or if vaccine coverage is low, if the maximal social distancing recommendations below cannot be maintained, LEAs should, where possible, prioritize other prevention measures including masking, screening testing, and cohorting.
LEAs should actively promote vaccination for all eligible students and staff. As vaccine eligibility expands, LEAs should consider school-wide vaccine coverage among students and staff as an additional metric to inform the need for preventive measures such as physical distancing and masking
Parental Screening
Parents/caregivers should be strongly encouraged to monitor their children for signs of illness every day as they are the front line for assessing illness in their children. Students who are sick should not attend school. Schools should strictly enforce exclusion criteria for both students and staff.
Schools should provide clear and accessible directions to parents/caregivers and students for reporting symptoms and reasons for absences.
Testing
At all levels of community transmission, NJ Department of Health recommends schools work with their local health departments to identify rapid viral testing options in their community for the testing of symptomatic individuals and asymptomatic individuals who were exposed to someone with COVID-19.
Response to Symptomatic Students and Staff
Schools should ensure that procedures are in place to identify and respond to a student or staff member who becomes ill with COVID-19 symptoms.