We are back to school soon, with masks, again. Austin ISD (AISD) has announced that, starting on August 11th, all people, teachers, students, anyone on campuses, will need to wear masks. I get it--the Delta variant is going crazy. The ICU reports are scary. However, I was really hoping that kids would get to go back to school with a little more normalcy. Do not misunderstand--this is infinitely better than distance learning, in my opinion. The things I think about, though, are the long-term effects we do not know about. What about the very young kids who are not seeing and understanding facial expressions? What about the kids who are going through speech therapy--some important aspects of speech therapy involve seeing how your mouth and tongue are *supposed* to move.
Will the kids even recognize their friends without the masks, when they finally get to take them off? Are there germ risks? I do not know. I am not, in any way, disagreeing with the decision to require masks in the school. I am ever optimistic--I was ever hopeful that we would not be in this situation at this point in the year. Do you think there will be repercussions for the district for disobeying Governor Abbott's mandate? I hope not. My parents live in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis has issued a similar mandate. Several counties have announced they will not follow the governor, there, either. I am curious as to what other parents think of this/ What do you think of what the schools have done so far? How have your kids fared? Best of luck to all of them as they get ready to go back to school this fall!