Lake County Gazette

The Lake Forest School District 67 and District 115 superintendent and district parents continue to make noise against Gov. J.B. Pritzker's executive order enforcing CDC guidance for students to wear masks. 

In a letter to Pritzker, Superintendent Matthew Montgomery requested the option to go without masks. Montgomery headed a school in Ohio last year where in-school learning was never paused, Fox 32 Chicago reported. 

"Mitigation strategies are best determined by the people most closely serving our students, staff, and families … I firmly believe it is in the best interest of our entire school community to return local control to our Illinois school districts," Montgomery said in the letter, as reported by Fox 32 Chicago. 

Parents have also followed suit in voicing their opinions it should be up to them if their children wear masks or not in the classroom. 

"I feel that parents should be given a choice," Lake Forest School District parent and former school board candidate Amy Marsch told Lake County Gazette. "We want to make decisions that we feel are best for our family."

During the Monday, Sept. 13 school board meeting, Lake Forest parent Alyssa Sinclair criticized the school board members for following Pritzker's executive orders, quoting Ronald Reagan by stating: "Freedom. Is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for. It must be protected and handed on for them to do the same."

Marsch agrees with Sinclair's criticisms of the board, and of the executive order forcing students to wear masks. 

"I just think you don't know what people's situations are, and parents should be allowed the choice," Marsch said. "And so that's that's my feeling on the whole thing, that parents should be given a choice and nobody in this community has that, that I know. I have not heard people saying 'you cannot wear a mask.' That is a choice. They just want the choice to opt in or opt out."

Sinclair pointed out during her speech to the school board that the members took an oath to protect students, their freedoms and the consituition, yet there is no law forcing students to wear masks and any legal threats to withhold recognition or funding that have been made are just that, threats. 

She went on to say that for any threat the ISBE has made to school boards, it would take at least 90 to 120 days for action to be taken, and the same amount of time for a law to be passed, so until then, it is only fair to give students and parents the right to choose if they wish to wear masks or not. 

"We're this far into COVID. It's time to learn how to live with it. I think that goes back to allowing parents to make choices for their families that they feel are best," Marsch said. "It's hard enough to be a parent, let alone a parent during COVID and people telling you what you can and can't do for your kids,"