Lake County Gazette

Lake Forest High School, which has 1,489 students, is now mask-optional.

The announcement came Saturday in an email to parents by Lake Forest Community High School District 115 District Superintendent Matthew L. Montgomery in response to a Sangamon County court ruling late Friday that declared Gov. J.B. Pritzker's school student mask requirement "null and void."

"In light of this ruling, effective Monday, February 7, while masks will not be required, the District is continuing to recommend masks for all staff and students in our school buildings," Montgomery wrote. "Student athletes and students participating in extracurricular activities at other schools are expected to comply with the health and safety protocols of they hosting school or facility."

"There are many perspectives on this issue," Montgomery wrote. "Regardless of your family or personal choice about masking, I am asking everyone to lead with kindness. It is critically important that we are respectful of each other's personal decisions."

In a 30-page ruling Friday night, Sangamon County Judge Raylene Grischow declared Pritzker's blanket state emergency school rules on masks and tests through the Illinois Department of Public Health "null and void." She said the governor and his agencies have been mandating rules upon students illegally.

“Statutory rights have attempted to be bypassed through the issuance of Executive Orders and Emergency Rules … This type of evil is exactly what the law was intended to constrain," she wrote.

Also on Saturday, Township High School District 214, which has nearly 12,000 students at six high schools, including Buffalo Grove, announced it would be mask-optional. The schools superintendent of the Chicago Archdiocese, however, said all Catholic schools in Lake County, will still require masks as he will not recognize Judge Grischow's order.

"Does that Face Mask Really Protect You," a 2010 research article by Dr. Larry E. Bowen of the Southern Research Institute in Birmingham, Ala., fit various types of masks on a mannequin to study their effectiveness, found that wearing surgical, bandana and dust masks offer "very little protection" and concluded that "wearing these face masks may produce a false sense of protection."

Lake Forest High School serves Lake Forest and Lake Bluff.