Parent Survey Link:
https://docs.google.com/forms/...
The political landscape for masks and COVID mandates in general is changing rapidly. I gave an update on the Sangamon County court decision a couple weeks ago, which was appealed immediately. We elected to stay with current mitigations until after Feb 17th, predicted date of an appeal decision. Last week, the Governor announced a lifting indoor mask mandates (except for schools) on February 28th, but also stated Wednesday that schools are only a couple weeks away from being optional. Yesterday there was a legislative decision to not renew the emergency orders proposed by the department of public health, IDPH. The number of cases and hospitalizations are dropping rapidly, and we see the same data for our district.
We are getting to a point where we will need to make a decision as to whether we continue with a school mask mandate or have masks be optional. We all know there are schools which are optional now. As of today, Belleville HS and all but one of the feeder districts, O'Fallon, Shiloh, and many more to our north, south and east. The Board will discuss the topic at the Feb 22nd meeting, and we would like to have input from all of you before our meeting.
Regardless of where we wind up, I know there will still be some concerns. Some of us have underlying conditions that cause COVID to be a greater concern and we will continue to accommodate and support everyone as best as we can.
Please also remember that the District may not have the ultimate say in all of this. The courts, legislature, governor, board of education, CDC, IDPH, along with parents and students all have opinions on masks. There may be a decision or ruling which we simply have to comply with, regardless of what we believe. We do value community input and want to make sure everyone has a chance to respond.
The results are for discussion purposes and will be provided to the Board.
Thank You in Advance!
M. Stines