Parents in one Essex County town are calling on the state to remove a mandate to require students to wear masks inside school as the temperatures rise.
The Cedar Grove School District has now implemented mandatory 10-minute mask breaks. Students will have to stand on a socially-distant spot during the breaks. There will be a minimum of two breaks per hour.
In a letter to parents, the Cedar Grove school superintendent called Gov. Phil Murphy’s exemption for masks during extreme heat contradictory, and that’s why he is having the 10-minute breaks each hour. The school does not have air conditioning.
One parent tells News 12 New Jersey that she did not send her son to school on Monday because of the heat.
“I felt too bad just to have him going to school with the heat. But I have heard from other kids that it was extremely hot for them. A lot of kids came home with headaches. We are serious and we don’t want our kids in school with masks, especially in this heat,” says Lindsey Arrighi. “It needs to be optional.”
The superintendent is also letting parents have a choice of virtual learning on heat advisory day.
Arrighi says that she wants the superintendent to ditch the masks entirely.