Masking should be a choice in Waterford Public Schools.

Mask mandates in schools are not an effective safety measure and they are damaging to our children. 

Every day, our kids go to school where they are forced to wear masks the entire day unless they're eating or their teacher takes them outside for a 'mask break.' During these cold winter months and with rainy, snowy weather, many children are not able to be taken outside. The only time kids get to take their masks off on those days is while they're eating - while they are already separated from their friends by plexiglass partitions in the lunchroom, or socially distanced by six feet in the classroom. 

They struggle to hear their teachers and their peers. They can't see the facial expressions of the children and adults they spend their days with. Children receiving support for speech concerns can't see their teachers' mouths, which is imperative in an SLP intervention situation. After recess or mask breaks, kids use their dirty hands to put their masks back on their faces, thus breathing in god knows what germs they’ve transferred onto their masks. They have to wear masks while participating in gym class; they struggle to breathe. 

Before COVID-19, children were not required to wear masks during flu season, although the flu is and always has been more dangerous for their age group than COVID-19. Masking is not for their benefit, but greatly to their detriment. 

Sign this petition and let our district officials know that as a community, we feel that masking in schools should be a personal and/or family choice, not a government decision without the individual child’s best interest in mind.