Mask mandate in FPS creates outrage from parents

On April 15, 2020, us students and teachers of FPS received an email saying school would be closed for two weeks because of COVID. A few weeks earlier, covid had been declared a pandemic.
We remained shut down for the rest of the school year. When we finally came back for the 2020-2021 school year, there were a few changes. Classrooms were distanced, masks were required, and there was an option to do virtual school.
“I was so confused.” says Fargo North student Maryn Schnider, “but I knew the people running the school knew what they were doing”
In early August, many people were unsure whether masks would be required. Finally, about 3 weeks later, the Fargo School Board voted to require masks to be worn indoors. According to McKenzie McCormick, the coordinator of safety and emergency management of Fargo Public Schools, “FCPH (Fargo Cass Public Health) has been recommending mask-wearing since the start of the school year”.
The CDC has said that all unvaccinated people over the age of 2 should wear masks indoors. In addition, all fully vaccinated people should continue to wear masks to protect themselves and others from the recently introduced delta variant.
In the past month, some parents and other adults have felt the mask mandate for all public school locations has taken away their fundamental rights and makes it hard to breathe. There have been a few partitioning at schools like Ben Franklin Middle School and a protest of around 30 people at Carl Ben Eielson Middle School holding up signs that say “No one’s saying you can’t wear one.”. They would like to eliminate the mask mandate to make mask-wearing optional. However, many students either like having the mandate in place or don’t care about wearing masks.
“I feel like they [FNH students] are facing it as an inconvenience.” Schnider stated, “I had to trust they knew what they were doing when they put the mask mandate out”.
On September 23, it was announced the anti-maskers did not get enough valid signatures to recall the five school board members. These members included Jim Johnson, Tracie Newman, Seth Holden, and Nikkie Gullickson.
While we don’t know when masks won’t be needed, we do know that they are a great way of protecting yourself and others from COVID-19 and the Delta variant.