Recently, a Booker T. Washington student has passed away from Covid-19. Unfortunately, with the lack of regulations from the school district, this is not a surprise. Most parents are refusing to test their children out of fear for their children missing two weeks of school, as there is no longer a remote option, even for students who are sick with Covid-19. Additionally, most students throughout the district do not wear masks, which further perpetuates the spread of Covid-19 among students and faculty at their schools. There have been 388 confirmed cases, and likely hundreds more have gone unnoticed. Especially now with the strikingly more contagious Delta variant, the district is inviting Covid to run rampant in schools by refusing to take the most basic preventative measures. Furthermore, Covid-19 is so rampant throughout Escambia County schools that most high schools have had to cancel their homecoming dances, an event most students have been looking forward to since 2019. At first, I was sympathetic toward the district after Governor Ron DeSantis threatened to take away funding for schools who mandated masks. Now that this has been overturned, most students are asking, ECSD, what are you waiting for?