The following speech was given at the Grand Haven School Board meeting on January 10, 2022.
I am a freshman at Grand Haven high school. I am on student senate, an honor roll student, and most recently an all-conference and all state athlete. I’m speaking tonight to provide a student’s perspective regarding mask wearing at school.
Wearing masks for seven hours of the school day for the last year and a half has been a complete nightmare for me. Wearing masks makes me very uncomfortable physically and emotionally. It makes me drowsy and self-conscious. It is hard to breath and very unpleasant sucking in fabric while trying to speak and breath. I am unable to see the expressions on my classmates and teacher’s faces. It is difficult to determine if teachers and classmates are happy, upset, joking, excited, annoyed, depressed and many other emotions without being able to see most of their face.
Wearing a mask all day every day is dehumanizing and I see every day how it’s taking a mental and emotional toll on fellow students. Instead of teachers and staff having positive interactions with students such as; “good morning”, “how are you?”, and “good afternoon”, the most common interaction overheard in classrooms and in the hallway is “pull your mask up”, and “put your mask over your nose”. It is hearting breaking for me to think about students just starting in school and forced to wear masks and being constantly subjected to these negative interactions.
Preschoolers and kindergardeners are coming into school every day not really knowing what their teachers and friends really look like. When you are learning in school, especially at a young age, body language and facial expressions are a very important part of development.
We have been wearing masks for over a year and a half. It is my understanding that the data has been provided to the administration and to the school board via email showing our district’s Covid numbers are similar to districts that are not wearing masks. When is this going to stop? Why are we going to continue a requirement that is not providing results?
The majority of school districts in this county have now given this choice to parents. The heath department has also dropped their mandate. Please give the choice to parents to do what is best for their children.