Lake County Gazette

A protest is planned at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire for Friday, Feb. 11.

A group will be protesting to make masks optional. Organizers said they will have a plane overhead, flying a sign over the school for two hours.

“We're trying to get some of the governor candidates to come as well,” a mother of three who was instrumental in organizing the protest said. The mother didn't want to be identified.

She and others across the community are fed up with COVID protocols in schools.

“This is serious. We want our choice back," she said. 

She said it is past time for the mandates to be over.

"The message is we want our choice back for our own children,” she said. “It is not up to the school administration to make these decisions on our behalf. These are our children. We are taxpayers to these school districts, and we deserve a choice. And when I see the hypocrisy of them not following their own rules, then where's the science in that? It's not about the science anymore. So give us our choice back.”

The parent said school officials  threatened students to not take part in the protest.

“They've actually been threatening the kids where they've been telling the high school kids that if they protest, they're going to get arrested,” she said.

"We want our freedom back. This is a free country. So they need to act on that,” she said.

The mother said the school administrators have been seen without masks but do not offer children the same relief.

“I see hypocrisy when I saw a Stevenson High School administrator in a gym this week unmasked watching his son play basketball,” she said. “When Stevenson is withholding food and putting kids in solitary confinement for not wearing masks, that's a problem to me.”

She said the school administration needs to take a hard look at their mandates.

“They are paid by our taxes and if they're going to set a precedent that they need to lead by example, and that's what they're not doing. And that's why a lot of the community is very upset, because what's good for the goose, I guess, isn't good for the gander.”

Another Stevenson High School mother, Lisa Katz, said her autistic son has been sent home for a month due to increased exposure and he inability to test for COVID due to his medical exemption for a mask.