Update February 8, 2022, 4:57 pm - over the past 36 hours, the level of local political conflict around here has heated up substantially. Parents are protesting outside schools and at local school board meetings. To me, this level of grassroots activism (how spontaneous or organic is unknown) feels like Tea Party 2.0. If conservative leaders aren't cheerleading, orchestrating and seeking to capitalize politically on this activity already, they will be very soon.
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A court enjoined the Illinois governor's education mask mandate last Friday. Now individual school districts must quickly devise new masking policies.
The mask wars have reached Illinois. Until last week, the governor required all students, faculty and staff in schools across the state to be masked. This past Friday, an Illinois judge issued a temporary injunction which set aside that requirement. Apparently, the injunction applies to all districts except the City of Chicago and Chicago Public Schools. In addition, the injunction doesn't supersede masking provisions contained in union contracts between teachers (or other staff) unions and individual school districts.
Consequently, things are a little chaotic in Illinois right now. As the injunction wasn't issued until Friday afternoon, school boards spent the past weekend in feverish discussions with their attorneys to try to figure out what to do. Some districts (including in my local area - a bit more on that below) immediately set aside mask mandates and are now "recommending" mask-wearing. At least a few districts, unable to come up with a full-blown replacement policy in the course of a single weekend, reverted to remote learning or gave the kids and teachers a day off today while they tried to hash out what to do now. Some districts apparently have vowed to ignore the injunction and will continue to insist that everyone wear a mask all day. Given the political temperature around this issue, those districts surely will be sued by parents.
The issue is soaked with politics. The lawsuit which led to the injunction was filed by 140 school districts from around the state; presumably these are conservative districts. The governor, who is running for re-election on the strength of his generalship during the COVID crisis, lambasted the judge and vowed to appeal. Teachers unions tend to be pro-mask and are key allies of the governor.
My local area has two school districts, one for elementary and middle schools and the other for high schools. I was interested to learn that both districts were parties to the lawsuits. The high school district can be a little outspoken at times; it had 15 minutes of fame during the Obama years when it declined federal lunch program funds when those funds were tied to healthy-eating standards. The elementary/middle school district tends to keep a lower political profile, but in this case it also acted as an agent for policy change.
These days, school districts are hotbeds of political activism. Parents groups are attending board meetings and demanding less strict COVID protocols. Our school boards comprise elected officials, and they are sensitive to political movements in their local area. The superintendents and principals owe their employment to these elected officials. So one can make an argument that this is democracy in action.
I know it is a cliché, but I wish everyone would follow the science. After two years of COVID experience, there must be studies that compare the health outcomes at schools with strict masking mandates to schools with less strict requirements. I'd prefer to be guided by facts. I don't like to wear masks, either, for more than a few minutes at a time. If there is little or no health risk, I'm all in favor of making them optional in schools. But if the health outcomes are substantially better with masking, then maybe we need to grin and bear the masks for a while longer.
Jim, I think you are right that by now there ought to be some good statistical data.
ReplyDeleteWe have had a mask mandate where I work for the previous three weeks. It was based on case numbers going up. Now the mandate has been relaxed, you don't have to mask if you are vaccinated. I'm still wearing one in the restroom, and I'm not eating in the lunch room. I'm eating lunch at my desk.
The anger spilling over into school boards lately is dismaying.
Maryland's requirement depends on the vaccination rate of the school students/staff and/or the county in which it is located. In my county, I think they are still required, but I'm not sure. People here don't make much of a fuss about it. People (and their kids) put on a mask when required and just go about their business. Maybe it's different in western Maryland and the other rural parts of the state - the only counties that went for trump.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.the74million.org/article/vax-up-masks-down-maryland-massachusetts-lead-effort-to-off-ramp-face-coverings-in-school/
There haven't been mask mandates since the legislature took away all the Guv's emergency powers. Their emergency health decisions are based on one simple question: Could a proposed health measure cause businesses extra money in anybway? If "yes," then no emergency exists.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, masks are passe. It's all about the libtards putting litter boxes in school bathrooms for the Furries. Girlfriends from my home town were burning the phone lines last week assuring me this dimwit was off her nut. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-8n9wrOxWQk
You just can't make this stuff up.
Unbelievable. But at this point, nothing is too bizarre.
DeleteJean, that youtube video put me in mind of vintage Saturday Night Live clips. It felt like I was watching Emily Litella. Yeah, I know it wasn't funny. But it kinda was.
DeleteOne of two things happened: Some kid put a litter box in the bathroom as a joke and this person took it seriously. Or she heard some fake news and rushed off to the school board meeting without checking it out.
DeleteBut the story got traction before the school super could debunk it. Meshawn Maddock, Michigan GOP co-chair and our Official State Karen, posted: Kids who identify as “furries” get a litter box in the school bathroom. Parent heroes will TAKE BACK our schools.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm?s_cid=mm7106e1_w
ReplyDeletewearing a mask lowers the odds of testing positive
The NIH has studies, too. I think people keep questioning the masks because they resent wearing them and keep hoping an authority will tell them they don't hafta. As I see it, it isn't the science that has been confusing, but the whiners who keep demanding that science tell them what they want to hear.
DeleteHaving a two-year-old's concept of liberty doesn't help either. No concept of civic responsibility or collective action or solidarity. It's not all just about MY surviving the plague. It's about my fellow Americans if that description means anything anymore.
DeleteI think the pandemic is one of those events that comes along a few times every century to remind us that your right to live ends with my mask being uncomfortable. We are going on 1 million covid deaths. Certainly not all, maybe most, were preventable. But the way the simple request to wear a mask to help reduce infection and stress on hospitals has been touted as a personal freedom issue is both laughable and sad.
DeleteWe have left vaccines, lockdowns, and masks become a political issue.
ReplyDeleteI lay a great deal of that responsibility upon our religious leaders who have failed to take a strong moral stand on this issue.
We will soon officially have a death toll of more than a million people due to this virus. Most of them are elderly like me. Our political and religious leaders have clearly put the economy ahead of human life. There can be no return to the normal after the deaths of so many people.
FYI, my late friend Howard was not vaccinated due to his medical condition. That seems to explain the bad outcome. Lovely Lutheran Church service. If I were blindfolded, I could barely tell the difference from Mass except they don't have the clunky language from the recent revision.
ReplyDeleteClaire - nice to see you commenting :-). Thanks for that reference, which demonstrates the comparative efficacy of mask-wearing vs. not wearing a mask. But I think the question arising from this post is something like this:
ReplyDeleteLet us agree that a school in which 100% of the students, teachers and staff wear masks 100% of the time will have less COVID spread than a school in which mask-wearing is not mandatory (with mask-wearing presumably less than 100%). What are the effects:
* What are the comparative health outcomes for students, teachers and staff? We would assume the outcomes will not be as good in the mask-optional school - but how much worse? Especially given that all schools, at least around here, take other mitigation measures such as social distancing. In addition, children are thought to be less susceptible to serious cases of COVID infection than adults. Are the outcomes in mask-optional schools worse but still within the range of what the local community would deem acceptable?
* Are there different educational and child-development outcomes? Many people assume that students will have better outcomes without enforced masking. Is that demonstrated?
It seems to me that knowing this information would help school boards and principals set (and defend) rational, fact-based policies. What I see happening in local communities around here is generating a lot of heat but not much light.
These are all good questions, but I'm not sure you can get this level of detail about mask efficacy with a virus that is new and constantly mutating, first more virulent but less contagious, then more contagious but less virulent, tomorrow ... who knows?
DeleteAnd I don't think the long- and short-term educational and social impact on children is going to be clear for some time. But teachers seem to agree that there has been some damage, probably more for kids without a lot of support at home.
Kids may not get deathly ill with covid, but a teacher will tell you that when a large number of kids in the classroom are out sick with any illness, it impedes learning for everyone. I used to dread a bad flu season because a third of the class might be out for a week or 10 days at any time between January and March, and trying to catch them all up--and trying to keep track of everybody's make-up assignments and deadlines--affects instruction. Instructors tell me covid is like this only worse.
And it's not just healthy kids whom schools have to think about. Some teachers are older and at risk, and any number of kids and personnel might have compromised immunity.
School admins and boards responsible for making rules are trying to juggle what will best facilitate learning and reduce infections against what the community will tolerate.
The same policies may not be applicable, necessary, or acceptable in all districts. Local health department officials seem to be best situated to advise schools with overall guidance from the CDC. In a few areas in Michigan, the local health officials are getting threats.
Even when there is light shed on these issues, some people just refuse to accept it. They don't trust authorities.
When I sent go the doc last month, she said that she was able to coax some patients into getting vaccibes. But a stubborn few expect that she is there, not to advise, but to coordinate tests and write prescriptions for hydrochloroquine or Ivermectin or whatever else their gurus are telling them will work.
Jim, I doubt you will find a decent answer about how mask wearing might impact school kids., It is my observation that if the parents don’t whine about masks, and if they live in a community where everyone wears masks without angst, the kids simply accept them as SOP and go about their activities. I’ve seen this with my grandkids in California and in Boulder. One of my sons just sent a video of his 4 year old daughter taking her first ballet lesson. A whole line of cute little 4 and 5 year olds dressed in their tutus, walking in a line practicing a simple kick step, all with masks. They aren’t a bit bothered. The second grader in LA is the same way. Everyone wears a mask at his school, and they are tested weekly - kids and staff. No problems because everyone cooperates. He went to a birthday party a week or so ago and that son sent a video of the party. It was outside in a park. The kids had sack races and broke open a piñata, and played other normal party games ( 7 little boys). They had a ball, even though all were wearing masks. Not even required outdoors in LA but maybe the parents of the birthday boy didn’t want to take even a small chance. I don’t think there will be any impact on outcomes in the schools my grandchildren go to in blue California or Boulder.
ReplyDeleteBut, in places where the parents are going ballistic, and ranting and raving in front of their kids about masks, and warning that their kids will be psychologically harmed by wearing masks at school I’m guessing the kids might be less interested in learning in the classroom than they are in imitating their parents’ rage. This could cause problems in the classroom, hinder teaching and learning, and so a negative result could be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"It is my observation that if the parents don’t whine about masks, and if they live in a community where everyone wears masks without angst, the kids simply accept them as SOP and go about their activities."
DeleteRight. That's what I thought my community was like - up until about a week ago. Now, it seems to me, the edifice of unity is starting to crack. Some adults have hit the end of their patience and acceptance. They've gone along for a while - in their estimation, a long while - and now they don't want to go along anymore.
I saw messaging from Dr. Walensky yesterday, begging everyone to hang on just a little longer; her message was, If present trends continue, it will be safer in just a few weeks for people to remove their masks. But I don't know whether people will hang on. Even some blue states have announced the upcoming end of mask mandates.
Our governor in Illinois tried to finesse the issue yesterday, saying make mandates will end soon (but not immediately) in most places - but not in schools. I have no doubt that his calculation in this is he fears the anger of teacher unions more than he fears the anger of activist parents.
What has happened in the past during the pandemic is that every time we abandon good practices like social isolation and masks, we get another surge which just prolongs the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteRight now, the very contagious omicron variant which came on quickly may be going just as quickly. There are even some people who think that if we all got inoculated by Omicron, we could get rid of the virus. While fewer infected people are being hospitalized by Omicron, and they stay in the hospital for shorter periods, we are still having a lot of people dying from Omicron. The effect of reducing masking and social distancing is that many more people will die even though most people will not be hospitalized, and most people will have flue like illnesses.
The bottom line is that we are becoming a nation ever more willing to see death and suffering in the name of a roaring economy and personal convenience.
The failure to vaccinate large portions of the earth's population and the presence of Covid in animal strains such as deer and mice, means that not only is Covid likely to become a seasonal virus like the flue it may also in some seasons take a very deadly form. I don't think we are prepared for either eventuality.