By Darley Carrillo
Many MMCRU students received an interesting and very welcome email last Sunday morning from principal Travis Sprague explaining that the long despised mask mandate at the high school had finally been lifted. The email stated, “The Iowa Department of Public Health has released an updated statement about mask usage in schools as of Friday, May 14th, 2021. Based on this new guidance, wearing masks will now be a choice for students, staff, and visitors while inside the school building and on school transportation. Please note this is effective immediately.”
When Mr.Sprague was asked to explain the reasons for the change, he stated, “The CDC and Iowa Public Health changed their policy on mask wearing and contact tracing, with their new guidelines it allows us to open up more. They loosened their guidelines, which allowed us to loosen ours.” When asked how this would affect graduation for the class of 2021 he stated, “Masks are still optional. For graduation people have their own choice if they would like to wear a mask or not. It depends on the person.” Mr. Sprague was questioned what was the difference in active cases starting from the beginning of the year to the end and he stated, “We have seen a reduction in not only confirmed cases but also in exposure. Both Cherokee and Plymouth County were different in numbers of cases. We were always lower than the county’s average.” He went on to clarify that generally school age kids are not as susceptible to the disease as are older people.
When reflecting on the changing policy, he stated, “I think it allows our students different opportunities and to see each other’s faces again because we haven’t been able to do that for awhile. I think it was great.”
Various students also expressed their thoughts about the change. Blaine Wicks stated, “I feel like we may still need it. For the time being the school is fine, but if you feel like you want to still wear it you can.”
Elizabeth Pedersen stated, “I personally think masks are worthless and it is so much better now that the mask policy is lifted.” Victoria Rojas stated, “I feel like we are going back to normal. We actually feel like nothing happened and we feel like we’re ourselves again.”