Some Go Maskless At Elmhurst School Board Meetings

Elmhurst IL

10 December, 2021

10:32 AM

Description

ELMHURST, IL — Elmhurst School District 205 says it requires everyone in schools to follow the governor's mask mandate. And in one-profile case involving a fifth grader, the district enforced it. Yet a number of people at a school board meeting last month went maskless. Earlier this week, Elmhurst resident Marsha Baker, who attended the meeting, emailed the DuPage County Health Department about the district's failure to enforce the mask mandate. "The issue remains that cases of COVID are on the rise in Elmhurst and mask wearing mandates should be enforced," Baker said in the email. "If members of the public are permitted to attend without masks, how can those of us who want to participate in public discourse be protected?" Patch asked the district about the maskless attendees at board meetings. In response, district spokeswoman Kate Sampson said the district has followed and remains compliant with the state's guidelines on masks. "It is the Board of Education's expectation that all community members comply with the mandate during board meetings," she said. At the November meeting, Baker spoke in defense of teachers who were being accused of indoctrinating students with critical race theory and Marxism. During her speech, a number of maskless people got up and interrupted her. She looked at one of the hecklers and said, "You're not wearing a mask, so you have no right to speak." The people were upset they were unable to speak during the public comment portion of the meeting. They were apparently among those making the argument that critical race theory was part of the district's curriculum. The teachers' defenders all signed up first and dominated the half-hour public comment period. While the district failed to enforce the mandate with the meeting attendees, it has done so with students. In October, a fifth grader at Emerson Elementary School decided to stop wearing a mask. In response, the school required that he work in the principal's office, rather than the classroom. Last month, nearly 100 protesters showed up outside Emerson to support the fifth grader. They opposed the mask mandate.