Schools go mask optional after court decision

This week many area schools at least temporarily dropped the requirement that all students and staff wear face masks, allowing students to go to school without their masks for the first time in nearly two years.

On Friday, Feb. 4, Sangamon County Circuit Judge Raylene Grischow granted a temporary restraining order blocking schools from enforcing those mandates, saying the mitigation rules amounted to a kind of “quarantine” and that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s administration overstepped its bounds by issuing those mandates through emergency rules.

For more information, please see this week’s print edition.