Crossfire: Should Masks at School Be Optional?

Masked students sit in the library. In addition to face coverings, only two students are allowed at each table. Photo: Kendra Chin

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“YES” By TIFFANI CLARK

For almost two years, we have learned how uncomfortable it is to constantly wear a mask. You can’t breathe as well wearing it, it’s unbearable generally, but especially when there’s hot weather, and it fogs up your glasses every time you breathe. No one seems to ask whether masks do more harm than good, and students want to know when this torture will end. 

In many other countries around the world, like the U.K. and Switzerland, face masks for students have been optional. These countries believe that masks are prone to harm students' social-emotional and academic lives.

Trying to communicate with masks on has been difficult for teachers and students who are trying to uphold a healthy learning environment. Shy or quiet kids especially have trouble communicating since their teachers and classmates cannot properly hear them through their masks. Having teachers repeat themselves if their students cannot understand them takes away from class time and wears teachers down. 

Our facial expressions communicate our emotional state. With masks covering 75% of our face, it’s difficult for students and teachers to understand how we are feeling. If a student is struggling with an assignment and does not have the courage to ask their teacher for help, a teacher can pick up on their expressions to see if they are confused. It’s more of a challenge for teachers to do this just by the eyes and forehead. 

Face masks produce another limitation when it comes to students building relationships with their teachers. According to Justina Schlund, a senior director at the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, a vital part of teaching is communication with students. “To build a relationship with someone whose face is covered by a mask may take a little bit more effort or different types of efforts than in the past,” Schlund says, as quoted by Arianna Prothero in EducationWeek. Masks could interfere with teaching social-emotional skills. 

What’s more, for teens who are going through puberty and have hormonal imbalances, acne can be a problem, and masks make this worse. While you’re wearing a face mask, the carbon dioxide you breathe out gets trapped inside your mask where the air becomes warm and humid. That warm air can then trap moisture in your skin and cause you to break out. It is common for teenagers to break out every once in a while, depending on their skin type. But masks have increased the production of acne, especially in the mouth, nose, and jawline area. This can lead to self-confidence issues. The effects of “maskne” is worse for students who suffer from rosacea or eczema.

To reduce the time that students wear masks at school, they could be mandated to wear them only during passing, when they push through Midwood’s crowded hallways to get to their next class. But during class time, students -- if they’re vaccinated -- should have the option to decide if they want to wear masks or not. If a student believes wearing a face covering will disrupt their learning, they should be able to take it off, and students who want to keep their masks on should have that choice as well.

“NO” By JORDAN LIN

As the world opened back up and schools resumed in person learning, many uncertainties remained. At the top of it all, or near it, has been the question of whether masking should be optional or not. But it shouldn’t be a question. Masks should be mandated.

Many states in the U.S. that dropped mask mandates saw a surge in cases over the summer, though this has since subsided. Of course, it is to be expected that cases can rise, mask or not, as masks are not 100 percent efficient at stopping the virus from spreading, since Covid aerosols can pass through most masks. 

However, what we do know is that masks seem to help slow down the spread, with daily growth rates that slowed by as much as two percentage points three weeks after masks were mandated in some states at the beginning of the pandemic, a study published by Health Affairs stated. In another article published by UC San Francisco, infectious disease specialist Peter Chin-Hong said that there is some evidence pointing towards transmission from saliva droplets, and masks block a majority of them.

Just because we’re uncertain of how much masks really help reduce the transmission of the virus inside schools packed with kids does not mean that we should just throw them out the window. The windows aren’t open for that; it’s just to increase air circulation — he said, smiling.

Increasing air quality through open windows and air purifiers, as well as social distancing, are other methods that are being used to limit the spread of the virus. We aren’t certain how much any of these methods really help, but we are still practicing them. 

Masking does present other issues for some people, such fogged-up glasses, breathing difficulties, or possible psychological harm in young children who are still developing phonetic skills. However, there are solutions. Students can use their phones to take photos of what they can’t see from far away with foggy glasses. Younger children can watch videos to help with phonics. People can just step out of the room for a quick breather if they need it.

Masks should only really ever come off during situations like eating or drinking, to switch masks, or in cases of emergencies. We should grasp at whatever can be done to get through this dark chapter in history while minimizing further loss of life.

With that in mind, masks should be mandatory until the average weekly Covid positive rate among students in public schools drops below 0.02% (about 1 in 5,000). Recently, the percentage has been 0.25% (about 1 in 400), though there may not be sufficient amounts of tests being carried out for the data to be representative of the school population citywide.

Being part of any community comes with responsibilities, like doing what you can to ensure the community is safe, or as safe as it can be, and trusting each other to live up to those expectations. It may be impossible to convince everyone to get vaccinated or mask in public, but in a school community, we owe it to each other to lower the chances of spreading the virus.