I  think masks should be made mandatory in Irish secondary schools. I think they should be mandatory because, in many schools, social distancing will be difficult to enforce and monitor,  face masks will help students feel safer in the classroom under these conditions. Many students and their families have underlying health conditions, these students will not feel safe being in an environment where all health guidelines can not be followed. Face masks will give these students a safe environment to learn in where they will be able to focus on their learning and not constantly worrying about whether or not they will be putting their families or themselves at risk of getting COVID-19.

If masks are not made mandatory many students will feel anxious going to school everyday because they do not feel safe. It will be detrimental to students mental health and will cause  students to fall behind on classwork and not reach their full potential due to the high risk of contracting COVID-19.

Masks should be made mandatory so that teachers feel safe in their work environment.

By making masks mandatory school will be a safer environment for everyone and the risk of contracting COVID-19 will be reduced greatly.

This petition is to demand that the Irish government makes it mandatory for teachers, students and other members of staff to wear masks in a school environment. If people do not wear masks we put everyone at risk and COVID-19 will spread rapidly again, closing schools doing even more harm than before. It is the best option to protect everyone and should be mandatory.