READFIELD — “I am honest when I say, if we make masks optional, we are going to lose teachers.”

Superintendent Jay Charette at Regional School Unit 38’s delivered that message at a regular board of directors meeting Wednesday night, as board members once again debated whether to continue mandating face masks inside school buildings amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The question of whether masks should be optional has been revisited during every regular RSU 38 board meeting since the start of the school year. But this time, the superintendent pleaded on behalf of the district’s staff.

Charette said if the board wanted to get rid of masks, he would work to support it, but it would make things more difficult within the district. RSU 38 is made up of the towns of Readfield, Wayne, Fayette, Mount Vernon and Manchester.

“I am uncomfortable saying it like this, but I would be remiss if I didn’t,” Charette said during the discussion. “At this point, we have had five teachers leave the district in the past six months, and a lot of it had to do with the stress of managing teaching, or being an admin, with everything that is going on with COVID-19. … I want to be clear on that. I can think of six teachers on my phone tomorrow morning telling me what’s going to happen and what they are going to do.”

Despite Charette’s plea, board member Keltie Beaudoin, representing Wayne, put forward a motion to lift the mandate and make masks optional for students. Four board members voted in favor — Beaudoin; Dane Wing, Manchester; Shawn Roderick, Manchester; and board Chairperson Cathy Jacobs, Mount Vernon — while seven board members voted against, Patty Gordon, Readfield; Tyler Dunn, Mount Vernon; Jade Parker, Manchester; Vice Chairperson David Twitchell, Wayne; David Guillemette, Manchester; Rebecca Lambert, Readfield; and Betty Morrell, Readfield. Melissa Tobin, who represents Mount Vernon, abstained and Kim Bowie, who represents Manchester, was absent, resulting in the motion failing 4-7.

A subsequent motion to keep the mask mandate in place was approved, 8-3, with just Wing changing his vote.

Beaudoin, who called masks “facial decorations,” said she made the motion “for the children” regarding their mental and emotional health and the development they still have to gain and learn through being in school. She said a student’s immune system has to be “exercised” and if a student or teacher contracted the virus, they could “check it off the list and move on with life.”

Board member Roderick said parents have other measures in place to keep students safe at school, through masking, if they choose, in addition to pool testing and the vaccine, if they are eligible.

Jacobs cited the research over cloth masks being “less effective” at stopping the virus in comparison to KN95 or N95 masks and said since she would not ask parents to buy the latter, “Why would we continue to ask parents to (have their kids wear) cloth masks?”

According to the Maine Center for Disease Control & Prevention and the Maine Department of Education’s guidelines, a district without universal masking would have to quarantine all students regardless of vaccination status, and nurses would have to track close contacts again — a task they have repeatedly said is time-consuming and can be close to impossible.

The CDC recommends surgical, KN95 or N95 masks over cloth masks, but said if cloths masks are all that’s available, they are fine to wear because they still provide a layer of protection and to wash them on a regular basis.

Board member Gordon said if the board voted to get rid of the mandate, they would be “blowing off their (nurses’) recommendation, and that’s not going to make them feel good.” Director Dunn asked the board to remember at the start of the academic year, when the board voted to “strongly encourage” masks for unvaccinated students and how the teachers and students felt about the decision.

“We tried this and it was a mess,” he said. “We talk about what students want, and I sat through that Zoom (in September) and 90% were for masks.”

Laurel Parker, a parent during public comment who works in an emergency room, urged board members to consider the influx of cases the district has reported in the month of January, which has come as the highly-contagious omicron variant of COVID-19 spread across Maine and the world. Parker, saying she spoke to them as a medical professional, urged the district to keep masks mandatory.

Though the numbers in recent weeks have improved with 39 student cases and four staff cases the week of Jan. 28, the week before of Jan. 17 had 66 reported student cases and currently, Mt. Vernon Elementary School is in an outbreak status until at least Feb. 11.

Board Member Parker, a nurse, said that in recent weeks she contracted COVID-19 and shared her experience with the virus as a “fairly healthy person.”

“You have kids who could potentially infect a parent or grandparent and that person could potentially die,” Parker said. “You don’t know who is having a mild case or a bad case — I was struggling to breathe and my lungs still haven’t recovered and three weeks out, I’m still struggling. It’s hard to say who is going to get really sick.”