Amid dropping COVID-19 numbers and legal pressure, CPS announced this week that the mask mandate would be lifted Monday but not, it appears, without another fight with the CTU.
Anthony Roberson, 46, picks up his 11-year-old son Aiden Roberson outside Skinner West Elementary School on March 9, 2022, in Chicago.
Lourdes Benitez, mother of a fifth grader and seventh grader at Patrick Henry Elementary School, where she is chair of the Local School Council, is one parent grateful for the end of the mandate. A father of five CPS students at Beasley Academic Center, Lindblom Math and Science Academy and Englewood STEM High School, Joseph Williams said he’ll continue sending all of them to school with masks. It “won’t hurt,” he said.
Other parents said they’re concerned about a potential for stigma or hurtful comments for children who choose to continue to wear masks. The end of the mandate was “another punch in the gut,” Mitchell said, after her son’s classroom had to quarantine three times this year. She’s anxious to see how CTU responds, and hopes the union will be able to protect the mitigations that were outlined in the January agreement, she said.
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