School mask debate in Tennessee grows heated as local board requires masks in elementary schools

Heated arguments spilled out into the parking lot Tuesday night after a school board in a suburban Tennessee county approved a temporary requirement for masks in elementary schools due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

As debates over masks in US schools have reemerged as the academic year begins, the Board of Education in Williamson County, just south of Nashville, approved the mask requirement for elementary school students, staff and visitors inside all buildings and on buses beginning Thursday and ending September 21, according to information from the school district.

With the highly contagious Delta variant, Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations...