CHICAGO — Most kids wore face coverings as they entered Park Manor Elementary School on Monday, even as Chicago Public Schools relaxed its mask rules for students and staff.
The school — in the Greater Grand Crossing community on the South Side — has struggled with COVID-19, especially as winter break began in December. Twenty-four people were in quarantine or isolation Sunday, after a positive case was detected at the school last week, according to CPS data. Some Park Manor parents expressed concern about kids being unmasked in classrooms for the first time since the pandemic began more than two years ago.
“I’m not comfortable with the masks getting taken off. It’s too soon. It’s really too soon,” parent Rosheena Green said Monday as she dropped off her 12-year-old daughter at Park Manor, a school with about 250 students.
“People are still getting sick, and the summer is coming. The weather is changing, so there’s still a chance that these kids could get sick.”
CPS cited a decline in cases and test positivity as reasons why it made masks optional for students and staff members this week even as it faces opposition from the Chicago Teachers Union. The district and the union reached a COVID-19 safety agreement, which includes a masking provision, in January after days of canceled classes amid the omicron surge. The district is still recommending masks.
The union safety deal is set to expire in August. CTU filed an unfair labor practice charge to the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board, which has placed the case on the agenda for its Wednesday meeting.
In the meantime, some parents celebrated the end of the mask mandate Monday. Lacey Cox, a parent of four Park Manor students, said it’s up to her kids to decide if they want to wear a face covering. They are each carrying one just in case it would appease some teachers, she said.
“Personally, I don’t do masks. You know, I have breathing issues and the constriction ... it’s hard for me to deal with it. And I understand (it) being hard for them to deal with it too,” Cox said about her children.
CPS announced Friday that masks still must be worn in certain situations, such as when visiting the school nurse; when exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms; and when returning from five days of learning or working from home after contracting COVID-19 or being exposed to it.
Preschoolers are escorted into Blair Early Childhood Center, a CPS school, on Monday, the day the mask rule was lifted.
CPS — the largest school district in Illinois, with about 330,000 students — was one of the last locally to transition to a mask-optional policy even as Chicago lifted its mandate for most indoor spaces and the statewide school mask requirement ended amid new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The mask rules were among the COVID-19 protocols challenged by downstate attorney Tom DeVore, who scored some recent legal victories.
Parents on both sides have been making their voices heard on masks. Some have long called for an “off-ramp” to the district’s COVID-19 policies while others say it’s CPS’ responsibility to protect the most vulnerable students, including preschool and prekindergarten students not age eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine.
John Rodriguez dropped off his 4-year-old daughter Monday morning at Blair Early Childhood Center on the Southwest Side. He said later she was excited not to wear a mask to school, and he’s not concerned about the policy change, even though she’s not old enough to get vaccinated. The Rodriguez family successfully battled the virus in December, he said.
“The first couple months of school, every couple of weeks, she had a new cold. So I was kind of like, well, is this mask protecting us from COVID?” said Rodriguez, who lives in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood. “And then at some point, around Christmastime, someone brought COVID into the house. It could have been her at school. It could have been me at work or my wife at work. We’re not really sure, but we all wore masks, and we still got it.”
Jessica Muñoz, who has a 5-year-old at Blair and an older child, said she was somewhat apprehensive about the end of universal masking in CPS.
“I mean, I want to see. I believe if you’re vaccinated, it works,” she said, but added that in CPS, “not a lot of kids I know are vaccinated. So it’s like, I don’t know how it works.”
Sophia Ramos, mother of a 4-year-old at Blair, said she was “really happy that they’ve gone mask optional. I was really frustrated with the teachers union and not having a voice in whether or not to mask my child.”
Paul Bruton, father of a 4-year-old Blair student, said his daughter will continue to wear a mask because she is too young for the vaccine and she has a baby brother at home.
“It’s been really tough the last couple of months because a lot of people are talking like the pandemic’s over, and I guess maybe it is if you’re vaccinated and you’re ready to move on,” Bruton said as he wore a KN95 mask.
“But for families with kids under 5, that’s not an option still — and obviously people who are immunocompromised or anything like that. So, yeah, I get why the district is doing it. We’re going to still mask up at least until there’s a vaccine available for kids under five.”
Blair serves 218 students between preschool and first grade, according to CPS. The school reported a few COVID-19 cases in early February, but none since then, CPS data shows. About 14% of the Blair student population is fully vaccinated, according to CPS vaccination data from late last month.
CPS said districtwide, nearly half of age-eligible students and more than 91% of staff are fully vaccinated. About 1 in 5 Park Manor kids is fully vaccinated.
Teresa Collins dropped off her 12-year-old son at Park Manor Elementary on Monday. She expressed concern that the school will continue to experience COVID-19 troubles. Park Manor has reported, on average, at least one new case every other week this school year. Thirteen cases were reported over a 10-day period in December, according to CPS data.
“So it’s gonna, you know, probably happen again, but I’m just praying that it don’t,” Collins said about a surge in school cases. “I’m just praying that they keep the masks — that the kids keep the masks on, you know? That’s my personal opinion.”
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