When should DC drop its school mask mandate?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
My kid has had a half dozen illnesses this school year despite masks (none of them Covid). She's in PK and the kids don't wear their masks properly and even if they do they are wearing cotton masks or thin surgical masks. With kids this age, this means their masks get wet quickly and just aren't doing much. BUT I also know from her teacher that the teachers can't really hear the kids through masks (in part because of the air filtration systems going in the room) and they also struggle to communicate with each other. I'm glad your kids aren't having an issue but people are not exaggerating the impact of masks. It would have been one thing to mask ECE kids for a few months, or just periodically during surges. Or if they masked indoors but could take them off outdoors and schools could accommodate having a significant part of the day outside in the warmer months. But that's not the case. These kids have been masked in daycares/preschool for two solid years. It is absolutely having an impact on them at this point. How old are your kids? Can you think back to when they were 3 or 4 years old? Try to imagine what it would have been like for them to be masked for preschool -- do you really think if that had gone on for two years at that age, you'd be eager to just keep doing it even if it didn't seem to be preventing spread of viruses? I'm not going to speak to what should be done for older kids because I don't have an older kid and I don't know what is best. But I do think we need to remove the mask requirement for ECE kids as soon as feasible (after the current surge ends). And we should only be masking kids this age under rare conditions. I think it's disturbing what we're doing to very young kids. And we are alone in it -- kids under 6 do not mask almost anywhere else in the world. Not all day at school. We are extreme outliers on this front. |
Anonymous
| Never. I can see more teachers quitting. But if you’d like that ok. |
Anonymous
Based on conversations with actual teachers? I have spoken to a number of teachers privately who are ready to look for an end date or a metric for removing masks. It makes their jobs harder. They are vaccinated and boosted. They are tired of struggling to communicate and policing mask wearing. I think there are many teachers for whom the removal of a mandate (which would still enable teachers and students who want to make to continue to do so) would be a real improvement in their quality of life. Teachers are much less scared of Covid now than they were a year ago. They've been teaching in person for 6 months at least, including through both the tail end of the delta surge and all of omicron. Their feelings on these matters have shifted, just like they have for many parents. |
Anonymous
When winter break ended and every kid was tested to go back, our school sent a communication that kids would be double masked upon entry to school. My children refused (they were wearing kn95s and putting a surgical mask provided by the school under the kn95 would completely defeat its purpose) and were promptly sent to the principal’s office for refusing to comply. |
Anonymous
|
I think surveying teachers and the teachers union would be helpful/interesting. My kids are unaffected enough that I would do what made the most teachers the most comfortable.
I honestly don't know what that would be. I have one close teacher friend that is very safety conscious and would prefer kids in kn95s and another that is so tired of wearing a mask all day. No idea which is more the norm. |
Anonymous
|
I really think we need to consider different rules for ECE, elementary, MS, and HS. Perhaps even different rules depending on vaccination rates by school.
ECE kids should not be masked. They are the ones most negatively impacted by the mask mandate, IMO. They don’t mask well to begin with so it’s not doing anything, and the costs to masking kids this age for literally years are significant. Low/no benefits and high costs. |
Anonymous
Talk about selfish. You think the entire education population should sacrifice their own education and social development, mental health and overall well being in an fruitless attempt to maybe, slightly reduce risk of exposure [although no data shows that it actually does] to a few - even while those few still are free to promote their own social life and mental well being by eating out in restaurants, going to bars, and generally participating in society while also protecting themselves by vetting vaccinated, wearing masks, and having priority access to the entire suite of medical treatments if they do get sick? Read the room. The rest of society is done with this false narrative that we somehow need to continually make sacrifices to "protect the vulnerable". Its not working and its not fair. |
Anonymous
I agree it's worst for the really young kids, but there is a reason the European CDC doesn't recommend masking kids under 12. It has an effect on everyone, even if they are unaware of it. Observing myself, I have certainly noticed that I am much less inclined to strike up a conversation with someone I don't know, and I find conversations with people I do know more tiresome when they are masked and usually end them more quickly. I cannot imagine it being different for many kids. One of my kids has ASD, and while neither of them complains about their masks, I am positive it makes it even harder for my autistic child to connect with other kids, and I'm sure this is true for many others who may simply be shy and not have a diagnosed disorder that impacts social interaction. To simply declare that the impact of masks, which is so intuitively obvious, is exaggerated, is not founded on any solid research and clearly a result of a preconceived notion, driven by a combination of politics and anxiety, that masking kids is necessary and good. Combine that with the lack of solid evidence that masks in schools actually have a significant impact on Covid transmission, and it is clear that this practice, which the US is alone in implementing so aggressively among Western nations, needs to end. |
Anonymous
Nobody's education, social development or mental health is suffering because of masks. You are ridiculous. -NP |
Anonymous
Wow. Which school is this? A charter? Our DCPS also pressured everyone to "upgrade" their kids' masks, and the vast majority comply, but nobody was forced. I simply told my kids' teachers we would not be switching to disposables and they told me it was fine. One of them has kept wearing a cloth mask herself. This is in Upper NW. FWIW, neither the teacher with the cloth mask nor my kids ever got Covid. |
Anonymous
Particularly when “the vulnerable” are a self designated group of people who may not actually be more vulnerable. Most of the people I know who are actually at higher risk for Covid (elderly people, my asthmatic mother, my dad with a heart condition, my friend the organ recipient on lifelong immunosuppressants, etc.) are triple or quad vaccinated, wear good quality masks in higher risk settings, and then otherwise get in with their lives. I’ve never heard any of them freak out about this stuff, and they are all in favor of in person school and dropping restrictions on kids where we can. The people I know who scream about “the vulnerable” are healthy, with healthy kids. But they say things like “we don’t know about the long term neurological consequences of long Covid in young kids!” Which… true, but what’s your plan? Everyone stays home forever until we can conduct a decades long study? We know for a fact that RSV can have dire consequences for young kids and we still send them to school. A friend of mine has a child who will always have have respiratory issues because of a bout with RSV when she was 5 that almost killed her. But that’s just life. We can’t protect our kids from the possibility of every negative consequence. |
Anonymous
Honestly, if they are that neurotic and freaked out about seeing children's faces, it wouldn't bother me in the least if they quit. They sound like they shouldn't be there in the first place. |
Anonymous
No, the PP is absolutely right. Only in America would anyone argue for the continued masking of all kids to protect an individual's special need. And only in America would someone advance the false narrative that masks have no costs to children's education and social development. |
Anonymous
Amen. |
Anonymous
|
This post is really heartening. We don't mind complying with the masks right now, but would love to see them go. I wonder how this will play out politically. This forum may represent a dynamic that is different from underserved communities which have been more conservative about COVID and have lower vaccination rates. Will they follow this trend? Also there was the recent student protest and even significant teacher opposition to school reopening in January. Although our city is divided I still think that we generally follow the same trends - for example support for schools being opened has been widespread this year despite pockets of opposition. So i do think there is hope. It would probably take a miracle.to get rid of the masks by the end of the schoolyear but you DC moms a
could make it happen. For this to happen isolation periods for DCPS children should definitely be reduced to five days. |