CHICAGO — The mask mandate in Chicago Public Schools was the first order of business at Wednesday’s Board of Education meeting, which President Miguel del Valle opened by restating that masks are staying on in schools, despite the imminent end of the city’s requirement.
“Yesterday, the Chicago Department of Public Health eliminated the mask mandate for the city of Chicago, effective Feb. 28. It’s great to see the metrics are going in the right direction,” he said.
“However, on behalf of the board, I want to reiterate our commitment to masking at this time. While CPS’ numbers are also improving, we know our student vaccination rate is significantly below that of the city and varies greatly by community. So for the time being, we will continue to require masks of all students and employees.”
Though del Valle didn’t mention it, universal masking is also a provision in CPS’ COVID-19 safety agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union. That was forged at the end of a January work stoppage that led to five days of canceled classes, and runs through August.
But echoing the divisions that have marked the pandemic from its start two years ago, not everyone is happy that CPS is sticking with masks and quarantining. That’s while scores of other school systems across the state have dropped the rule amid a legal challenge that has gained two recent court victories.
The Chicago Parents Collective, a group that formed early last year to push for a quicker return to in-person classes, put out a statement this week “demanding that Chicago’s public officials identify the metrics that will allow CPS students to return to normal.”
“Where is the COVID-19 off-ramp for Chicago’s public school children? The rest of the city, state and country are adapting mitigation strategies to reflect the reduced risk of severe illness from this virus. Why is CPS not doing the same?” group cofounder Ryan Griffin said in the news release.
The group further criticized the Board of Education’s plans to vote Wednesday on a resolution that would codify COVID-19 safety measures, including a mask mandate for students and staff, testing for unvaccinated employees and quarantining.
The resolution would also reaffirm CPS CEO Pedro Martinez’s authority to change district COVID-19 policies in consultation with public health officials “and other stakeholders,” which presumably include the teachers union.
In his public remarks at the board meeting Wednesday, Martinez said district leaders “just want to make sure we’re very careful right now.”
“Even though we are seeing some increases in vaccination rates, our vaccination rates vary so much across our community or city across our schools. And so we want to make sure that we just continue to be extra conservative, extra safe, but we will continue again to monitor and to consult,” Martinez said. “... This is not going to be a decision that’s done alone. But again, we just want to be sensitive to the fact that we still have a lot of our staff, a lot of our parents that are very anxious.”
Martinez will have another chance to defend the district’s rules Friday, when he’s due in Sangamon County Court after two CPS parents who participated in a lawsuit said their children were told last week to wear a mask or leave district property.
The attorney for the parents, Thomas DeVore, argued Martinez and Mount Greenwood Elementary School Principal Catherine Reidy violated the temporary restraining order issued in the case, which suspended the mask rules for the plaintiffs’ children. The judge ordered Vernon Hills High School Athletic Director Brian McDonald to appear in court after a similar complaint was lodged against Community High School District 128.
DeVore has announced he will mount a Republican bid for Illinois attorney general, something CTU President Jesse Sharkey noted in his remarks before the school board Wednesday.
“We don’t know what this pandemic is going to do next. Let the right-wing attorney general candidate say this is all about personal freedom, that we need to breathe free, that I have the right to blow hot air on anyone I want,” Sharkey said. “But we know it’s not that simple. We are literally in this together. We literally share the air we breathe in the building. And we have to think about how our actions affect others.”
CPS parent Nicholas Kryczka was one of many who addressed the board, asking for an end quarantines for close contacts of infected people and for a transition to optional mask use to coincide with the end of the state and city mask mandates.
“It will be a truly shameful spectacle if all of us are set free to enjoy our normal adult lives at church, at restaurants, at shopping centers and in meeting rooms like this one while our kids are then left to carry on straining to learn through the muffle of a mask,” Kryczka said.
Nancy Griffin, co-founder of the Chicago Parents Collective, asked the board to provide data-driven criteria that would spur the district to ease its COVID-19 measures.
“Vaccination rates for children has been mentioned multiple times today, but does CPS have a number we need to hit in order to decrease mitigation? While vaccinations help, is it a mandate for families in order to move forward? The problem with all of these is they seem like arbitrary goals, not clear and defined based on health guidance,” Griffin said as she addressed the board by phone.
Parent Jessica Venegas called CPS’ COVID-19 policies illegal and predicted further legal action if the district does not stop what she was were violations of children’s due-process rights.
“We as their parents are tired of standing down. We will not stand down any longer. To those parents who want the precautions, I want to make it clear that no one is trying to stop you from taking the precautions that you feel are necessary,” Venegas said. “But imagine if we tried to tell you that you weren’t allowed to mask your children. You would be furious, so understand the rage felt by those of us who are being forced to mask our children. Everyone must remember that we are seeking to choose for our health, for our own children.”
The latest round of the COVID-19 rules debates comes as CPS reported 310 student and 83 adult new cases last week. The district experienced its omicron-fueled peak in cases during the week of Jan. 9, with 1,688 student and 1,117 adult cases reported.
Quarantine and isolation numbers have dropped as well. As of Tuesday evening, 405 students and 67 adults were in isolation because they tested positive for the virus or in quarantine because they came in contact with an infected person and they’re not fully vaccinated, according to CPS data. Earlier this month, the district cut its quarantine and isolation period from 10 to five days for those who are asymptomatic.
