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 rules amid a legal challenge that has gained two recent court victories.
Also Wednesday, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced that it’s dropping mask rules at schools in Chicago, Evanston and Oak Park starting Monday, a move that it already made for Catholic schools in Lake County and the rest of suburban Cook County. The archdiocese cited plummeting infection numbers among its staff and students, saying no whole classes have needed to be quarantined this month and that only 10% of schools currently have a single case.
In CPS, the Chicago Parents Collective, a group formed early last year to push for a quicker return to in-person classes, put out a statement this week asking, “Where is the COVID-19 off-ramp for Chicago’s public school children?”
Group co-founder Nancy Griffin pointed out the city announced benchmarks for easing COVID-19 restrictions, but CPS did not.
“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 Wednesday.
Griffin’s group further criticized the Board of Education’s plans to vote Wednesday on a resolution that codifies COVID-19 safety measures, including a mask mandate for students and staff, testing for unvaccinated employees and quarantining.
The resolution, which was approved by the board, also reaffirms 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 predicted CPS will eventually allow masks to be optional and said, “I would love that to happen before the end of the school year.”
For now, the masks will stay on as vaccination rates vary across schools and parents continue to express anxiety about the pandemic, Martinez said.
“I’ve been through this since March of 2020, the number of times I’ve seen where I became hopeful and then this pandemic humbled me all over again. I thought (the) delta (variant) was going to be it, and then omicron humbled me completely. It humbled the entire community. So that’s all we ask is, just let’s proceed with caution,” he said.
Martinez will have another chance to defend the district’s rules Friday, when he’s due in Sangamon County Circuit 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 the office of 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 to 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.
Parent Jessica Venegas called CPS’ COVID-19 policies illegal and predicted further legal action if the district does not stop what she said 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.”
Board members agreed that CPS needs to be more transparent about decisions on COVID-19 mitigations.
“I do think it’s reasonable to ask us … what are the metrics that the district is considering? But I also am very comfortable that today, Feb. 23, 2022, being cautious is the right thing to do and it’s appropriate. And I just want to reaffirm and appreciate the district’s commitment to that,” board member Elizabeth Todd-Breland said.
“We’ve been through this now a couple of years. We’ve seen the numbers go down, and we’ve seen them spike right back up again.”
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.
About 330,000 students are enrolled in CPS, the nation’s third-largest district. More than 90% of CPS staff is fully vaccinated, according to district data. About 53% of CPS students 12 and older are fully vaccinated, and about one in three students between the ages of 5 and 11 have received at least one vaccine dose, the district said.
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 were 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 days to five days for those who are asymptomatic.
