West Cook News

Conservative radio host Dan Proft is questioning Grand Avenue Preschool’s owner Mary Rizzardini’s decision to reinstate masking and keep her student population of 2- to 5-year-olds in masks until summer break.

Proft, who co-hosts Chicago’s Morning Answer on AM560, slammed the school for the renewed policy, particularly with the recent heat Chicago has been experiencing.

"Ninety-three degrees and preschoolers at Grand Avenue School, private non-denominational, in Western Springs are wearing masks outside. COVIDian lunacy. Child abuse. Do these kids have parents?" Proft said on Twitter.

Rizzardini, the school’s owner, made the announcement that children in her classes would return to masking, West Cook News reported.

On May 9, Rizzardini re-established the practice for the remainder of the school year. This is despite children in that age range not exhibiting severe illness when faced with COVID infection and after masking has been done away with across the country and by the federal government, whose own mask mandate on transportation was ruled unconstitutional two weeks ago.

Rizzardini also instituted a rule on March 1, noting that only "parents who are vaccinated and boosted can come inside the preschool classrooms for 10 minutes to visit or pick up their children at the end of the day."

Grand Avenue Preschool is a for-profit organization that operates out of the former Western Springs School District 101 Grand Avenue School.

Burr Ridge also has a Rizzardini site.

Amid the latest COVID season, some are calling for a wholesale return to masking, The Belleville Intelligencer reported.

However, the overwhelming majority of Americans across the country have taken their masks off everywhere.

Three weeks ago when a federal judge ruled masking unconstitutional, airplane passengers across the nation took off their masks in a show that the COVID pandemic, or at least its protocols, are at an end for the overwhelming majority of citizens who were subjected to, what many are calling unscientific mandates, them for over two years, according to the ATL Standard.

“There are no longer any states requiring people generally to wear masks in public places. Several states still mandate masking for most people in certain high-risk settings, including health care and long-term care facilities," the AARP noted.