North Cook News

Township High School District 214, the state's largest high school-only district with 11,895 students, is now mask-optional.

The announcement came Saturday in an email to parents by District Superintendent David R. Schuler, in response to a Sangamon County court ruling late Friday that declared Gov. J.B. Pritzker's school student mask requirement "null and void."

"(Sangamon County Judge Raylene Grischow) ruled that students and staff need to be afforded due process rights and do not need to wear masks, a form of 'modified quarantine' while in school unless under a quarantine order from the local health department," Schuler wrote. "This will apply to all students, staff and visitors to our school buildings."

"Effective Monday, February 7, we intend to follow Judge Grischow's ruling for the District and each of our schools," he wrote.

In a 30-page ruling Friday night, Grischow declared Pritzker's blanket state emergency school rules on masks and tests through the Illinois Department of Public Health "null and void." She said the governor and his agencies have been mandating rules upon students illegally.

“Statutory rights have attempted to be bypassed through the issuance of Executive Orders and Emergency Rules … This type of evil is exactly what the law was intended to constrain," she wrote.

Also on Saturday, Arlington Heights School District 25 announced it would be mask-optional. The schools superintendent of the Chicago Archdiocese, however, said all Catholic schools in North and Northwest Cook County will still require masks as he will not recognize Judge Grischow's order.

"Does that Face Mask Really Protect You," a 2010 research article by Dr. Larry E. Bowen of the Southern Research Institute in Birmingham, Ala., fit various types of masks on a mannequin to study their effectiveness, found that wearing surgical, bandana and dust masks offer "very little protection" and concluded that "wearing these face masks may produce a false sense of protection."

District 214 includes Buffalo Grove, Hersey, Prospect, Rolling Meadows, Wheeling and Elk Grove High Schools. It serves students in Buffalo Grove, Mount Prospect, Arlington Heights, Wheeling, Rolling Meadows, Elk Grove Village, Prospect Heights, Palatine and Des Plaines.