‘A Choice No Parent Should Ever Have To Make’: Parents Are Suing Over Mask Mandate Bans

Samantha Boevers’s son, Porter, made massive improvements after having being diagnosed with autism. He was going to be put to preschool this fall due to his progress. Hence, when Boevers took him on his first day of preschool this week, she hoped to feel all the emotions parents should be feeling right now: exhilaration, pride, solace. “The sole thing I felt was unbearable horror,” said Boevers, a specially trained teaching assistant.

She said that Porter’s well-being was a deep concern, as it was uncertain. Boevers said mitigation policies, such as wearing masks indoors, are helpful to limit that threat. The Boevers and his family reside in South Carolina. 

US Parents Are Suing Over Mask Mandate Bans

In South Carolina where schools forbid requiring everyone on campus to wear masks. In many South Carolina schools, wearing a mask is not mandatory, and there is evidence that. 

Because of inadequate regulations, there has been an increase in covid cases. South Carolina has the third-highest COVID infection rate in the US. As per the records collected by the American Academy of Pediatrics, young kids accounting for about a fifth of the state’s cases. 

Together with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union, parents and attorneys recently filed a lawsuit in federal court to challenge the prohibition on masks in South Carolina schools. 

Proceedings naming several authorities from state and local academic boards as defendants claim South Carolina plans breaches federal law by prohibiting pupils with disabilities from participating in the institutional system. 

It is one of seven proceedings filed in at least the past few weeks in states with restrictions similar, such as Arizona, Florida, and Texas, and many that have ruled against those Students with disabilities complain about rights violations. In one of the Florida trials, a circuit court judge ruled that a state rule banning masks at school was illegal and that the district had the choice and right to make its policy. 

The procedure arose mainly from an increase in cases of children with COVID due to delta mutations. The mask ban puts all students at risk. But parents and attorneys say they are more threatening to thousands of students with disabilities and increase the risk of serious illness corona-related deaths.

 “Children with disabilities have the right to learn, interact and with all other kids, to be educated and to go home as safe and sound as possible,” states the ACLU procedure. “We now have to make the painful decision to choose between our education and our health as parents of children with disabilities,” says Boevers. “And these are choices that no parents should ever have to make.” 

“I’ve seen individuals say that parents of kids under the age of 12 are experiencing a different emotion than other parents because their kids are not eligible for immunization,” Boevers said. “That is, ‘during this pandemic, parents of wonderful children under the age of 12 live in hell.’ Every day we are concerned about the wellness of our kids when doing the normal things that every kid has a right to do.