Parents against masks and social distancing in Lower Township schools

Enough is enough. These kids need to breathe and see their friends faces. School is for socializing not prison time.

My son has sensory issues and he will not be able to function with something covering his face all day. It is cruel and needs to stop now.

These guidelines are mandated by the state. The individual districts decide how they are going to enforce the them but they can not disregard what the governor has mandated. Although the reasons and examples you stated may be valid it isn’t an option for the district to enforce or not enforce, it is only their option how they can do it within the perimeters of their resources.

This makes no scientific sense. Check out Scott Atlas studies are Hoover Institute.

In addition to the physical, mental, and emotional dangers created by masks and forced social distancing, the negative impacts on education will be monumental. Our children will be adversely affected for the rest of their lives. Before becoming a stay-at-home mom, I was a teacher (grades 3-6) for eleven years in Scotch Plains, Bridgewater, Cape May City, and in the country of New Zealand. Teachers must speak loudly and clearly throughout the day because it is vital for children to learn proper vocabulary, pronunciation, phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, syntax, and context. Along with grammar, semantics, and pragmatics, these components work together to create meaningful communication among individuals. Being able to visually see the teacher's mouth and clearly hear word pronunciation is essential for language development, communication, reading inflection and comprehension. Anyone who has worn a mask knows how difficult and nearly impossible it is to clearly communicate with someone directly in front of you -- can you imagine a young child trying to understand a math lesson from the back of the classroom? As an educator, you are also well aware that school does not simply teach academics, but also provides social and emotional development that many children are not receiving anywhere else. As social creatures, it is crucial for students to be able to learn facial cues. In a world where children have built up emotional and psychological walls due to limitless exposure to technology, visually seeing their teachers' and classmates' faces is critical to their emotional well-being.

This is ridiculous. Leave the children alone

I don’t believe that there is enough data to require/implement these changes at this time. The government and CDC has been wrong more often than not all throughout this pandemic. If this is as dangerous as you all believe it to be then why would/should we send our children to an environment that you feel is so unsafe that they need to wear masks all day long and keep a distance of 6 feet away from each other? What does that even look like? Does this not sound insane to you? We are parents trying to protect our children. We can not trade off one illness for another and be okay with it. We don’t know enough about the long term effects of COVID and we certainly don’t know what kind of hindrance this is going to have on our children’s learning capacity by depriving them of oxygen to their little brains for X amount of hours/day. I am asking that you take your time to get it right and rethink this. I know you. You’re a smart dude. Do better by our children.

Our children need to return to school normal in September for their mental health and well being.

Having a child that suffers from asthma and myself suffering from it we know the risks of wearing a mask for long periods this will harm our child we will not put our child in harms way

Not going to send my kids if they cant have the proper learning

Not going to send my daughter back to school