Teachers in a Colorado Springs school district told students to tape masks to their faces, according to results released Tuesday of an investigation by district staff.   

In a Monday night meeting with more than 75 members of families of students attending Chinook Trail Middle School, Academy District 20 staff announced that while teachers themselves had not taped masks to students’ faces, they had told students to do so.  

Some students, district spokeswoman Allison Cortez said in a Tuesday morning press release, believed they were required to tape masks to their faces based on that directive.   

“We are disappointed, both by the decisions made and the outcome of the investigation,” Chinook Trail Middle School principal Tom Andrew wrote in a letter to families. “More importantly, we are disappointed this event led to learning and social and emotional impacts to our students and their families.” 

Last month, the middle school received a complaint from the parent of a student; the parent told a staff member that the student said teachers were securing masks to students’ faces with tape. Reports of the incident spread across social media, “with multiple versions of what happened and how it happened,” Cortez said at the time in announcing an investigation. 

The investigation, which encompassed 10 teachers and staff and over 100 students, found that four teachers had violated district policies and procedures, Cortez said. 

Those teachers, identified as part of the school’s Team 642, apologized to families through a letter provided to them Monday night. 

“It was never our intent to cause anxiety, fear, confusion, or physical or emotional harm,” the team wrote. “To follow district policy and keep students engaged with in-person learning, our team made a mistake in our methods. 

“Please accept our deepest and most heartfelt apologies,” they added. 

Luba Tikhonchuk, whose brother attends Chinook Trail Middle School, said she believed that teachers had brought up taping masks to students’ faces as a suggestion to keep them from falling down. She added that she and her family didn’t feel the situation warranted disciplinary action.  

“We would be OK with the teachers teaching my brother, still,” she said.  

Another family, who declined to be named, also said they thought the situation had been blown out of proportion, likening teachers’ instructions to tape the masks to “probably a jovial comment” that was then taken out of context, and then went viral.  

In an interview, Cortez said that some students who were interviewed for the investigation were initially confused about the issue, interpreting the directive to tape the masks as a “fun thing to do” that students eventually “ran with.”  

“We’re not backing away from ‘Yes, there was a directive,'” Cortez said. “But there was also middle-schoolers being middle-schoolers. They took the reins and thought it was kind of fun.”  

Cortez didn’t confirm if disciplinary action had been taken against the teachers, saying she wouldn’t discuss personnel matters as they related to the investigation and that the district was following internal administrative policy and procedure as they finished up the investigation. 

The district issued a mask mandate for all students, staff and visitors, regardless of vaccination status, in late September in its effort against the COVID-19 pandemic.