RICHMOND, VA: "After ongoing debate, masks and face coverings will be optional in all Virginia public schools after new legislation passed its final hurdle in the House of Delegates. Legislators approved Senate Bill 739 on a party-line vote, 52-48, on the House floor on Wednesday. Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed the bill just a few hours later, to lift school mask mandates across the Commonwealth. The governor included an emergency clause to make the bill effective no later than March 1. It's a move the newly elected Virginia governor has been trying to make since he was first sworn in. On day one as governor, Youngkin signed the highly controversial Executive Order 2 on masks in schools that was met with pushback almost immediately from school districts across the Commonwealth, including several in Northern Virginia that challenged it legally in the Arlington Circuit Court and won."
https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/virginia/youngkin-mask-mandate-virginia-schools-optional-legislation-signing/65-d78154b9-c28d-4348-bf6e-d59fd1918a8a