Hawaii public schools will continue to require protective masks indoors for now, but outdoor use becomes optional effective today, state schools interim Superintendent Keith Hayashi has announced.

The indoor masking requirement at Hawaii’s 257 regular public schools stands for now even though Gov. David Ige announced Tuesday that the overall statewide indoor mask mandate will sunset March 25 alongside the current emergency proclamation.

The reason indoor masking will continue at the public schools is that state health officials have recommended it for more densely populated “congregate settings” such as schools, public transportation and prisons, Ige said at a news conference.

The indoor-masking rule continues to apply to all of the public schools’ 160,000 students and 42,600 full- and part-time school employees, as well as visitors and contractors, at all regular public schools and all other state Department of Education facilities, DOE Communications Director Nanea Kalani said.

The DOE has required its students, faculty and staff to wear masks both indoors and outdoors since the start of the school year as protection against COVID-19.

Meanwhile, the state’s 37 public charter schools are independently governed and make their own decisions on masking, taking the DOH’s guidelines into consideration, Kalani said.

On the shift to make outdoor masking optional in the public schools, Hayashi said in a news release: “It’s encouraging to see our indicators trending in the right direction to allow us to make this change. We’re seeing COVID case counts at our public schools continue to decline for the seventh straight week, and weekly rates are down 98 percent from January’s omicron surge peak.

“I want to thank our students, staff and families for being diligent with mask-wearing throughout this pandemic. That diligence helped get us to this point where we can start to ease restrictions in a safe manner.”

The easing of the outdoor masking rule was welcomed by the parent group at Mokapu Elementary School in Kailua. Maureen Lenzi, who has two children at the school, had started an online petition calling for the outdoor masking rule to be dropped at that campus. It was signed by more than 500 people by Tuesday.

“On behalf of the parents that I’ve coordinated with over the last two weeks, we are thrilled that the students and staff of HIDOE schools can now make outdoor masking choices for themselves,” Lenzi said via email.

“We are so thankful for the outpouring of support we received from our community over the last two weeks. I am also grateful for the HIDOE’s responsiveness and willingness to change their policy. I am looking forward to working with our school and the HIDOE as the remainder of the COVID policies are updated.”

However, some other parents around the state commented on social media that they worry that children who choose to continue to mask outdoors at school could be bullied and won’t be supported.

One Central Oahu mother of two public school students, who asked to remain unnamed because she fears retribution, said, “I hope the schools will protect those students who will still choose to wear their masks throughout the school day, indoors and outdoors. Students with medical conditions especially should be protected.”

When asked whether there is a certain metric or event that will lead the Health Department to eventually recommend the end of indoor masking at the schools, state Epidemiologist Sarah Kemble said during Ige’s news conference that her department will monitor multiple measures.

“Unlike in the general community, where we’re more focused on hospitalizations, for schools it may be more like looking at absenteeism, whether in-person learning is successful given the level of community transmission of COVID,” for example, Kemble said.

The Education and Health departments are in constant conversation and collaboration over COVID-19 measures at the schools, Kalani said. All of the state’s principals will meet online today with Health Department officials to discuss current and potential changes, including the guidelines for the upcoming graduation season, which currently call for masks.

The shift to making outdoor masking optional for the schools is based on the latest recommendations from the state Health Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the DOE said.

The CDC’s latest guidance for K-12 schools recommends that outdoor masking not be required when community levels of COVID- 19 are low to moderate. All counties in Hawaii were designated as “low” as of Tuesday, when the DOE’s announcement was made.

The CDC determines the COVID-19 community level through a combination of metrics, including new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 population in the past seven days, the percentage of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, and total new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population in the past seven days.