Younger students in Douglas County School District will be required to wear masks starting Monday, the district told parents Friday, bucking a Thursday decision by the county’s commissioners to opt out of the mandate.

The order, which applies to children 2 years of age through sixth grade, plus adults who work with them, was instituted for Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties earlier this week. The counties are under the health umbrella of the Tri-County Health Department, which approved the narrowed order – short of a complete mandate for all students and staff – after voting down the broader option. 

The Tri-County order technically applies to children between the ages of 2 and 11. But in his note to parents, Superintendent Corey Wise wrote that 94% of sixth-graders would qualify for masking, so the district was extending it through the entire grade level.

But the Douglas County commissioners met earlier this week, and after hours of almost unanimously anti-mask comments, its three members voted unanimously to opt out of the order. But the order also allows the school district to continue to follow it, even though the county’s tried to pull out. 

The commissioners directed staff Thursday to draft a resolution opposing the district potentially opting in. 

“The Tri-County Health Department and other medical experts emphasize that mask-wearing is an important and effective prevention strategy to keep students and staff safe,” Wise wrote. “While masks are not mandatory for students in grades 7-12 at this time, it is still strongly recommended that all students and staff wear masks inside school buildings regardless of vaccination status.”

Parents in the district had previously said they planned to protest Monday, even before the district had announced its decision and as the county was in the process of pulling out of the order. 

A message sent to the board was not immediately returned Friday.

Earlier this week, Gov. Jared Polis and Jill Ryan, the executive director of the state’s Department of Public Health and Environment, wrote a letter to school districts to “implore” that they institute measures like masking and social distancing. The letter indicated that the state would step in if COVID-19 spread in schools, forcing online learning in districts with lax policies.