West Cook News

After two hours of discussion, the River Forest District 90 School Board voted Tuesday night to keep its 1,400 students wearing face masks in school, despite a court order deeming the practice illegal.

Presented with a recommendation to go "mask optional" Feb. 28 by District Superintendent Ed Condon, the board voted 4-3 to table the measure. 

“We’re still dealing with an outbreak that started with our holiday break," said board member Dr. Nicole Thompson, an "academic physician" and anesthesiologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. 

“If everybody comes back sick after spring break, then we’re going to go back to square one," said board member Cal Davis.

Board member Sarah Eckmann said she wouldn't be comfortable allowing students to take off masks without getting "recommendations" from Rush on how to operate schools without masks.

"My biggest concern at this point is not having those guardrails," she said. "If we could get those recommendations from Rush before we go maskless, that would make me more comfortable”  

Rich Moore, who works as an assistant principal at Morton West H.S. in Berwyn, which goes mask optional on Wed. Feb 23, said he wants to keep masks on River Forest students.

"I would recommend we wait until after spring break," said board member Rich Moore. “I would not support this (mask optional) recommendation."

Spring Break ends April 4.

Moore noted that Chicago Public Schools' have not yet gone "mask optional." He said waiting until after Spring Break would also give the board time to see if Gov. J.B. Pritzker wins his appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court.

Pritzker's statewide mask mandate was declared "null and void" by a Sangamon County judge on Feb. 4, calling the governor's attempts to bypass citizen due process a "type of evil." His appeal of the ruling was denied on Feb. 17; the governor's appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court has yet to be accepted.

More than 730 of the state's 845 public school districts have gone "mask optional" this month in response to the court rulings. That includes Evanston Township High School District, whose principal admitted Tuesday that schools can no longer legally force students to wear masks, and that doing so puts school officials in legal jeopardy.

District 90's legal counsel is Nicki Bazer of Franczek P.C.

Still, Thompson, Davis, Eckmann and Moore voted against considering a "mask optional" policy for District 90. Board members Katie Avalos, Barb Hickey and Stacey Williams voted to consider it.

Superintendent Condon's recommendation was that "District 90 schools should implement a 'mask recommended, but not required' COVID-19 safety mitigation protocol in all D90 buildings, beginning on February 28 (assuming stable community transmission rates)."

The recommendation specifically excluded pre-school students, who Condon would keep masked, “as these students do not yet qualify for (COVID-19) vaccination."

The largest study of youth and COVID-19, reported in December, found that there wasn't a single healthy child between the ages of 5 and 18 in Germany who died from the virus in the first 15 months of its presence. Odds of "serious illness" was one in 50,000 for a healthy child aged 5-11.

Researchers in the United Kingdom have found similar results, reporting that a total of six healthy children out of a total of 12 million have died in the country of COVID-19.

Elmwood Park District District 401 went mask optional on Feb. 18, Clarendon Hills School District 181 on Feb. 8, Western Springs District 101 on Feb. 10, LaGrange-Brookfield School District 102 on Feb. 16 and Hinsdale High School District 86 on Feb 21.

Komarek School District 94 in North Riverside announced it will go mask-optional on Feb. 28.