Jim Marchese Looks at Parent Rights and How School Mask Mandates Can Actually Hurt Our Children  

After the rise of the delta variant for COVID19, states have been reconsidering their mandates regarding masks. While all 50 states removed the mask mandates in place during 2020, the controversy has been high surrounding policies for schools.

Jim Marchese recently spoke on his concerns about states choosing to circumvent every parent’s choices regarding masks for their children while at school. He is President & CEO at MortgageNOW, Inc and a resident of New Jersey, a state with mandated masks for all students.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) came out with guidance for the 2021 – 2022 school year that noted, “Due to the circulating and highly contagious Delta variant, CDC recommends universal indoor masking by all students (age two and older), staff, teachers, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.” 

This is in complete contradiction to their previous stance, which stated vaccinated people do not need to wear masks. 

With this recommendation in place, says James Marchese, schools throughout the country have faced difficult decisions and pressure from both sides of the debate. Some parents have gone as far as picketing school boards to reinstate mask mandates, while others have done the same when they felt their rights as parents were being taken away with mandates in place.

“Amber and I, as well as many parents, have pulled their children out of school to attend virtual classrooms or home school their children to avoid mask mandates. We are witnessing; “A growing number of parents taking action as they don’t believe it is in their child’s best interest to wear a mask or take an experimental vaccine.”

Several states have an order for masks in place, including California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

“There is an inordinate proportion of people fleeing states which push masks, vaccines, and lockdowns, explained Jim Marchese. “These families are relocating to states which value our freedoms and respect that as parents we have a right to decide what is best for our children.”

Some states have gone as far as to ban the orders for masks from school districts, including Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, and South Carolina. In those states, the argument has been made that masking requirements take the choice out of the parent’s hands and could hurt the children.

Iowa state representative Holly Brink worked on a law preventing schools from setting and enforcing mask mandates.

“I believe in local control, and the ultimate local control is letting the parents and students make their own decisions in regard to their health,” she stated.

“This is about personal responsibility,” said Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt in late July. “This is about freedoms.”

James Marchese is concerned that without individual case consideration, a one-size-fits-all mask mandate is not in the best interest of children or educators.

“There is not a single study which shows a mask prevents children from transmitting COVID, and the New Denmark study argues masks do not demonstrate a statistical significance when preventing COVID transmissions in adults,” says Marchese.

“Children are very unique as they have lower transmission rates, less severe disease as well as poor compliance with keeping their masks (and hands) clean. Moreover, kids feel trapped, have social difficulties, and are suffocated by the masks breathing in their own Co2.”

“Children rarely wear them properly all day long, and there is not any study evidence that fabric masks (as opposed to N95 medical-grade masks) are even effective enough to be worth wearing for hours on end.”

Serhiy Yarusevych, a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo who studied the differences in masks, stated, “There is a very big difference in the effectiveness of different masks when it comes to controlling aerosols.” 

The higher up you go to make a mandate, the more removed those people are from the classroom and parents themselves. At the end of the day, people must have the freedom to make these calls regarding personal health for themselves and their families.

One thing is clear: the very same policy mask pushers do not use masks, which is proof of the political theater, and do as I say not as I do stance.