re: Outlook on mask wearing mandates in Catholic vs. non-Catholic private schools

The children have essentially been voiceless in this.

Reverse the situation:

"horrible virus" killing scores of children. You think the adult government officials shut anything down?

Nope.

This doesn't adversely affect the kids. Its less of an issue than is the flu. Anything surrounding school restrictions, at this point, is an orchestrated charade that is currently worsened by scared parents, histrionic teachers, biased political figures in the board of education.

Schools are very, very safe. We will NOT be dealing with issues with relaxed restrictions.

Interesting! It would make for an informative news article to compare mask policies at local Catholic schools.

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Can anyone here offer more context as to who ultimately makes these policy decisions and along which timeline?

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JBE sets the minimum for the State, it is believed he follows LDH, who claims to follow CDC. However, we have seen where he gets more extreme than both

The Parish President is then responsible for setting the minimum for the Parish as long as it is the same or exceeds the State's standards

Then the mayor for incorporated cities, as long as it meets or exceeds that of the parish.

Then the Archdiocese would be able to set the standards for the schools as long as it meets or exceeds the minimum standards of the City.

Enforcement is an entirely different game that is all over the place everywhere.

Excellent explanation- thank you.

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How is it that non-Catholic churches and non-Catholic private schools can determine for themselves that masks are not mandatory

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First things first I'm not aware of a school open for in person learning within at least a 50-100 mile radius of me that doesn't have some form of mask requirement at least for upper grades.

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who ultimately makes these policy decisions

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From the individual Catholic school perspective the Diocese will make the final call. Now who is the Diocese beholden to....who know, but most likely will wear masks until the case count comes way down.

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Is it all about the threat of lawsuits?

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That's one reason....there have been vocal threats from parents when they find out that a student in their kids class has COVID...and these are white, rich, well to do parents (obviously since they pay tuition)

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It would seem the schools that want to retain or regain their students in the fall

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shite....most Catholic schools in this area have seen enrollment shoot up over the last year. For 2021-2022 my daughter's schools enrollment went up nearly 15%.

They've had such a windfall of revenue this year that we haven't paid for lunch since Mar 2020 and I'd bet it continues through the end of the current school year(it amounts to about 30-40 bucks a month per child give or take).

ETA Others above mention LDH and CDC....I believe the Diocese policy over my daughter's school follows current LDH and CDC guidelines....so they say. I imagine if case count gets low and LDH/CDC still doesn't back off on the mask mandate (they won't) then the Diocese will revisit the policy.

Truthfully, I don't really care if a mask is effective or not. What I do care about, is that my kids are physically in school. My kids attend a Catholic school in BR and they do have fairly strict rules in place with the mask and distancing. I'm pretty sure they do this based on the current recommended guidelines. They probably don't necessarily agree with them, but their goal is to stay open. If adhering to the guidelines keeps the government off their back, then it's a win. My kids don't even complain about the mask because they want to be at school and hate learning virtually. It's not the schools goal to fight the government, but to remain open and have in class instruction. The infection rate at the school has been extremely low this year. Is it because of the mask, I'd say no. Most of the parents from the school are like me and only want their kids in school. Fighting the mandates is for all the TD renegades.

MIL works at a catholic school were masks were mandatory. Still caught Covid from a coworker.

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They've had such a windfall of revenue this year that we haven't paid for lunch since Mar 2020 and I'd bet it continues through the end of the current school year(it amounts to about 30-40 bucks a month per child give or take).

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That is not why you are not paying for lunch... USDA issued a waiver allowing the entire country to serve meals for free to every child in every school. The feds are covering the cost, not your schools general budget.

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Other than preventing spitting, sneezing, drooling, or gleeking on people ....MASKS....DONT....DO.....shite

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I for one welcomed this prior to 2020.



Honestly, before 2020 were some people okay with others spitting, sneezing, or drooling on them? It's like some people all of a sudden said, well now it is disgusting for someone to talk a foot away from my face, breath on me, sneeze on me, spit on me, etc.

I really appreciate your perspective. I also have heard from parents about frustration from other parents when other children/ parents at schools test positive for COVID. Again - there seems to be such a wide range of concern for the potential ability of spread and potential effects of COVID. It is unfortunate that parents cannot choose classrooms for their children based on masking and social distancing policies.