Dear Dr. Johns, Dr. Williams, Mr. Markey, and the D225 school board,

With the recent court ruling on masks, some are taking that as a sign that masking should be removed within schools. That is not the case. Instead of listening to a small group of parents, the school board and administration should be listening to actual medical experts.

Here are some reasons why we should keep masks for the time being:

1. We were just at a 13%+ positivity rate in the district, one that would be much higher without masks.

2. We have a lot of students who are immunocompromised or have immunocompromised parents. Since masks mostly protect OTHERS, if there was no mask requirement it would put students and their families at risk against their will.

3. The ADA requires schools to provide a safe learning environment for students and multiple lawsuits nationwide have ruled for universal masking in schools because of this. If the district removed the mandate this would put the district at legal risk.

4. If our cases go up after the removal of masks we may have to go remote again. We had to go remote for 2 days last month because of a large amount of cases, this would likely happen again and more frequently. We all know there are huge benefits to having students in the classroom.

5. Health experts keep saying that masks work. The "other" petition mentions a lot of sources as to why they don't, but anybody who has ever written a high school academic research paper can quickly point out that all those pieces of evidence are outdated, misleading, or not peer reviewed. If you want a real picture of how masking works you must do your own research by talking to infectious disease specialists.

6. At home testing is more common. Now that household testing is more common, less cases are being reported because they are not done in labs. Our local numbers are worse than they look.

7. Some parents are saying it should not be a big deal if there are no masks because the students who want to wear them still can. This ignores the main feature of masks, to help others. While they do offer you some protection, they are mainly to protect others. If you have a large group of students not masking then that becomes pointless.

8. GBS and GBN don’t have the greatest social distancing. It is impossible to walk through the hallways at passing periods without having to struggle just a little bit. Seats are also distanced at the same levels as they were before COVID. How would students be kept away from those who don’t want to wear a mask if the school has no social distancing?

In short, I am not an infectious disease specialist, the other side is not an infectious disease specialist, and you all are not infectious disease specialists. I trust you all to listen to actual scientists rather than an article from April 2020. I trust that you will put safety above politics and keep our students, their families, our teachers, and our community safe.