Seven-year-old Elise Corcoran stepped up before the Arlington Heights School District 25 board of education Thursday night to deliver her top five reasons why she believes students should not be required to wear masks in the classroom when the new school year begins next month.
“When it is hot in the classroom, we sweat and it sticks to our faces,” said Elise, a rising third grader at Dryden Elementary School.
“I don’t like wearing masks because they make me feel claustrophobic and that makes me feel anxious,” added Jack Mungovan, 12, a rising seventh grader at Thomas Middle School.
“I already lost my first year of middle school to COVID and wearing masks … I really want to be able to experience middle school normally,” Jack said.
The pleas of Elise, Jack and the 500 parents who signed an online petition asking that masks be optional in the fall appeared to resonate with the District 25 school board, which voted unanimously Thursday night to give parents at the kindergarten through eighth grade district the choice of whether or not their children wear masks in the classroom in the fall.
Despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state health department’s recent recommendations that unvaccinated students and staff should continue wearing masks indoors to prevent the spread of the virus, District 25 is among a growing slate of suburban school districts that have passed policies this month that veer from the updated COVID-19 guidance for schools.
The updated recommendations arrive at a time when many families are enjoying the state’s loosened restrictions this summer, and some parents are determined that even unvaccinated children should be allowed the same liberties.
“We’re getting kids their freedom back,” said Marsha McClary, a mother of five children who attend Barrington Unit School District 220.
While the District 220 school board on Tuesday approved a plan that gives parents a choice about whether their middle and high school students wear masks in the classroom, officials are still discussing a “phased-in” approach for kids under 12, who are not yet eligible to receive the vaccine.
“I understand the need to still wear masks on airplanes, which is no big deal,” McClary said. “But with our kids, we’re talking about five days a week, for more than six hours a day … you can’t see their emotions and their expressions. So much learning has been lost, and it’s going to take a long time to get that back.”
Of course, not all parents are in favor of easing mask restrictions, including Alison Thompson, who urged the Naperville District 203 School Board on Monday to keep students and staff fully masked when classes resume Aug. 16
The issue was a hot topic, with parents arguing their points and stakeholders submitting 46 pages of online comments.
“I hate to break it to parents, but it really isn’t a choice individually — it is an all-in situation,” said Thompson, whose youngest daughter has an underlying condition that could put her at risk if she caught COVID-19.
Superintendent Dan Bridges asked parents to be patient as the district awaits further state and regional updates on the CDC guidance.
“We’ve got what we asked for, we’ve got some guidelines, we’ve got some clarity,” Bridges said. “Once we have some of those questions answered, we will finalize and communicate our plans for the next year.”
At Wheaton-Warrenville School District 200, Superintendent Jeff Schuler said in a Thursday parent letter that given the updated guidance, districts can “remove mitigation strategies based on local conditions.”
“The board also accepted our recommendation that the first prevention strategy we lift is mandatory mask-wearing at all grade levels, as it offers individuals (both students and staff) and families a choice to continue wearing a face covering should they want to make that choice,” Schuler said.
“Our administrators and staff will ensure that our schools remain safe, caring and respectful learning environments that are supportive of an individual’s choice on mask-wearing, As adults, we have an opportunity to model that behavior for our students,” Schuler wrote.
Evanston Township High School said in a Thursday email to parents that students and staff who are fully vaccinated do not need to wear a mask indoors at school. Those who are not fully vaccinated must wear a mask indoors at school, and students and staff who are vaccinated “may choose to wear a mask if they wish,” officials said.
Meanwhile, officials at Oswego Community Unit School District 308 announced Monday that the district “does not have a masking mandate or policy enforcing the decision for a student or staff member to wear or not wear a mask while in person at school/work,” adding that masks are only required on school buses.
Officials said the district does not have a policy requiring students and staff to disclose their COVID-19 vaccination status, and “the district will not tolerate the bullying of individuals for wearing or not wearing a mask.”
Some experts warn that the easing of COVID-19 restrictions at schools in the fall is premature, especially given that the highly contagious delta variant is now the predominant virus circulating in the U.S.
“It’s very risky to allow individual school boards to determine mask/social distancing policy on their own without justification,” said Dr. Robert Murphy, executive director of the Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
While Murphy said kids do not typically get very ill with COVID-19 when infected, “some do get very ill, and more importantly, they can bring the virus home to their relatives and friends, essentially feeding the cycle.”
“These numbers are not going in the right direction,” he added.
“Loosening mask requirements for any unvaccinated group, including schoolchildren, is very risky and will aggravate the ability to control the pandemic and lead to more infections, more hospitalizations and deaths,” Murphy said.
Officials at the Illinois Education Association, a state teachers union, last week showed support for strictly following the updated CDC and Illinois Department of Public Health guidance.
“Both agencies are correct that vaccines are the best way to keep students and staff safe and for those who can’t get vaccinated, wearing a mask is the next best option,” IEA President Kathi Griffin said.
Indeed, even officials at school districts that have established policies that make masking a choice rather than a requirement are well aware of the unpredictability of the virus.
“This directive is subject to change based upon changes in applicable factors including an increase in COVID-19 rates or revised public health guidance,” officials with Oswego Community Unit School District 308 said.
Back in Arlington Heights, District 25 Superintendent Lori Bein also underscored the importance of parents, students and staff remaining flexible, and understanding that depending upon the community’s COVID-19 rates, the mask choice decree could be rolled back.
Bein said the district had zero COVID-19 cases among 850 students enrolled in summer school, and expressed her confidence that the district’s eight schools can fully reopen to pre-pandemic normalcy, including the restoration of all clubs and activities, lunch in the multipurpose room and even field trips.
Still, Bein acknowledged she is “not a medical expert,” and despite her faith in the layered mitigation strategies and low virus rates in the district and community, “if we see a jump, we’ll move back to masks.”
“We all hope we don’t have to do that, but if we see students and staff are getting sick, or at risk, we do need to come back and talk about that,” she said.
*story by The Chicago Tribune
