As the new school year begins, there are reportedly intense debate occurring over masks in schools and states like Texas and Florida are restricting local school board’s authority to implement their own requirements.

CNN’s Dakin Andone writes “These restrictions — made despite guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommending masks for everyone in schools regardless of vaccination status — have prompted showdowns between state officials and some local school districts, who say they’re trying to protect their communities, particularly students who are ineligible for vaccines.”

In USA Today, Jeanine Santucci writes that emotions are high on both sides generating stunning video footage that bombarded social media.

The parents need to be the boss of what’s best for their children.

Anna Penola, a parent of four, told the Michigan State Board of Education (source: USA Today)

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I am so worried that if masks are not required, my brother could go to school one day and the next, be dying in the hospital. We are siblings so we have our rivalries, but I don’t know what I would do if he died, especially if it was caused by a place that means so much to him, school.

Lila Hartley of Jacksonville told to her school board (source: USA Today)

USA Today’s Jeanine writes that despite the mask controversy and intense debate some facts are clear. “Children are contracting COVID-19, and at higher rates than before. There were 93,824 child COVID-19 cases nationwide reported July 29 through Aug. 5, or 15% of the total weekly reported cases, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.”

• Minnesota schools wrestle with mask decisions just weeks before classes start
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• Name-calling, canceled meetings, pleas from students: A week of school mask mandate chaos

In Minnesota, local school officials are wrestling with last minute mask decision and are reportedly “racing to reassess their strategies — and coming up with a patchwork of policies that may vary considerably in neighboring communities”.

According to Star Tribune “A growing number of districts, primarily in the Twin Cities metro but also in smaller cities elsewhere, have moved quickly to mandate masks for all or most people in school buildings. But in much of rural Minnesota and several districts on the edges of the metro, masks and other measures like quarantines will be optional.”

It’s been really intense. It’s not an exaggeration to share that I have responded to hundreds of e-mails, on both sides of the issue.

Jonathan Weinhagen, chairman of the Mounds View school board (source: Star Tribune)

Scott Croonquist, executive director of the Association of Metropolitan School Districts, told Star Tribune “The closer you are to urban and inner-ring suburbs, it seems to be less controversial, with more broad support [for mandates]. And the farther you move out into the exurban areas is where it gets to be more split or even weighing more heavily on the opposition to mandates.”

We want to have choice. Choice is what freedom is, especially on this topic.

Sarah Ronchak, an Elk River parent (source: Star Tribune)

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There’s an element of, yes, I want to keep my child safe from getting sick, but I also want to keep my child in school and have the best learning situation.

Jeremy Frank, a parent of an elementary student in Minnetonka (source: Star Tribune)

Mandy Fletcher, superintendent of Blue Earth Area Schools in southern Minnesota, told Star Tribune that most prevailing feeling of her community was ‘no masks required in schools‘. However they are also worried “with the new delta variant, I wouldn’t be shocked if we saw something similar”.