Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction believes it’s time to take off the masks for students. “Throughout the pandemic, the Department of Health and Governor Inslee have set essential health and safety requirements for our schools using current data and research. Their leadership has helped Washington state to have some of the lowest rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations and mortalities in the nation.”

I believe we should keep the mask mandate because a lot of people remain unvaccinated which can cause the virus to be deadly.

Another reason is that children can catch the virus and spread it to their parents, grandparents or people with chronic illnesses causing issues or even death. Even the child itself might become too sick leading to problems with their immune system.

My last reason on why we should keep the mask mandate is that masks keeps children, teens and adults safe from catching this deadly virus and keeps us from spreading it to people who are struggling with their health or the people that we care about.

It’s too early to lift the mask mandate in schools because it can lead to closing down schools and going to remote learning again. This is a bad idea waiting to happen. Kids don’t want to go back to remote learning as it can become hard for students and can lead them to become depressed. As well as staff feeling overwhelmed and anxious with remote learning.