On Friday, Feb4, 2022 Judge Grishow said in a ruling granting a temporary restraining order against Goventory Pritzker's mask mandates that the governor's orders seemed to try and work around individual due process in law and called the bureaucratic maneuvering a "type of evil" that the law was intended to constrain.

School districts 211 and 54 have responded by communicating that masks will now be optional in D211/D54 schools.  There are some individuals that are attempting to bully the D211/D54 administration into reimposing mask mandates despite Judge Grishow's ruling.  D211/D54 have not banned masked wearing, they have made the wearing of masks optional and left the decision as to what is in the best interest of the individual in the hands of parents, students, and staff.  For those individuals that are uncomfortable not attending school mask free, the option is still available for those individuals to wear a mask.  It is also important to note that many have spoken up at past BOE meetings claiming that unless wearing a properly fitting N95 mask, the benefits of masking are negligible.  This has now recently been confirmed by the CDC.  This highlights that for nearly the past 2 years, students and teachers were, in a sense, attending school protected "psychologically" vs actual protection as a result of masking.  It is important to highlight that even at the hight of the pandemic, U.S. Mortality Rate(per 100k), Age 0-17, from diseases of the respiratory system AND Covid 19 was 1.6 whereas looking between 1999 and 2018 the rate average was 1.8 - peaking at 2.1 in 1999 and 2003.  Based on these metrics (source CDC) there is no reason to continue with mandating masking in our schools as there has not been any significantly higher mortality risk to students than in the past.  The option to wear masks should remain so as to accommodate high at-risk individuals during the current Covid outbreak and for future flu seasons where it is in the interest of an individual to have access to an additional preventative layer of protection against commonly spread illnesses.