Rock Island Today

Celebrations over Rockridge CUSD 300 school district's decision to go mask optional were premature.  

After going mask-optional for one day, the school district convened an emergency meeting Dec. 16, rescinding the decision.

A school board employee told Rock Island Today the only information available was that the mask-optional policy had been rescinded in favor of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s executive order requiring masks.

School board president Nathan Faith — who advocated for the mask-optional policy — did not respond to a request for comment on why the mask optional policy was overturned.

The school district initially opted to go mask-optional come January in a Dec. 15 meeting. Faith said at that meeting that mask did not appear to help the states still mandating them. The board voted 3-2. 

“California (has) some of the strictest masking in America,” Faith said at the Dec. 15 meeting. “High transmission. New York, high transmission. Germany, high transmission. Every single one of them has transmission. You’re not slowing the spread with a mask.”

That earlier decision has some on social media rejoicing.

“Woo hoo!! @Rockridge300  announces a mask optional policy, effective Jan 6, 2022, 'by the direction of the Board to the [district] Superintendent'” #authority  Also no more exclusion of students based on close contacts.   This. Is. The Way,” a notable author on COVID-19 using the Twitter handle Emma Woodhouse said. 

Pritzker has sought to cut school accreditation and funding for those schools pushing back against his orders.

A growing number of schools are signing onto a class action lawsuit pushing back against what they consider to be executive overreach.

So far 145 school districts have signed on to the challenge.

Based on those efforts, a judge recently blocked Pritzker’s attempt to punish the school districts by removing their recognition from the Illinois State Board of Education, the Washington Examiner reported.

A recent study by Canada’s University of Waterloo published in the Physics of Fluids found cloth and surgical masks provided little protection from the dispersing of aerosols in the indoor environment even when worn properly and that at best the top of the line N95 masks only provide 50% filtration of exhalations.

A University of Illinois at Chicago study found that "cloth masks and face coverings are likely to have limited impact on lowering COVID-19 transmission, because they have minimal ability to prevent the emission of small particles.. and offer limited personal protection with respect to small particle inhalation.”

Only a 16-mile drive away in Muscatine, Iowa, schools are disallowed from requiring masks. The state dropped mask rules altogether back on Feb. 7.