In September, two mothers sued their Wisconsin school district due to their children contracting COVID-19 and their health being endangered. The lawsuit includes the school not taking necessary action and how it led to their child catching COVID-19. Schools should be responsible in the way that they handle this Pandemic because they end up jeopardizing the students, teachers, and faculty.

On Oct 12, Guardian reported, “Jensen said her child wore a mask in class while many students did not wear masks, including one who had COVID-19 symptoms two days in a row in September. Jensen said the school told her quarantine was optional for her child, even though their classmate had tested positive.The parent suing, Shannon Jensen, found it highly irresponsible for the school to make quarantine optional even though her child had contracted COVID-19 symptoms and masks weren’t established or mandated.

The school did not take precautionary measures allowing students to not wear masks and allowing them to come in contact with the virus. The school should have taken action by making sure that the affected student is safe before they return to school. This helps to speak truly on behalf of how irresponsible these schools are to allow this to happen or even occur.

Parents believe that this issue is out of the hands of the school but they are entirely wrong.

NPR reported, “ The complaint said the school board voted against a mask requirement for the 2021-22 school year and that people are allowed to visit the district without masks or being screened or tested for COVID-19.”

The current mask mandate fluctuates based on the environment. People assume now that masks are something of the past and don’t need to be mandated. However, this is inaccurate as masks should be mandated in schools where students spend most of their time, seven hours a day, five times a week. The failure to mandate masks contributes to their students being at greater risk of being exposed to COVID-19. This school district knowingly took away the mask mandate even though they know the nature of the students. Even in Parkdale, students wear masks everyday due to the mandate and COVID-19 restrictions are enforced by the school.

“It’s fair for parents to sue the school,” said junior Sahio Shand. “Parents expect their children to be safe but they send them to schools with their safety being at risk.”

The school in question disregards all of the virus by not adjusting for those students who may be doing online due to quarantine.

Guardian reported that the school did not offer an alternative to learning for her children who were at home quarantining.

The least any school can do apart from the masks is allow the students to learn how they are at home. Without this implementation, the students have to choose their well-being and the well-being of others over their grades and school work. Online learning would help students continue their education but this school system discourages it. All this leaves sick children going to school infecting others simply because there is no other way.

On Nov 5, 2020 the National Conference Of State Legislatures reported, “Given the pressure to reopen schools, some administrators were concerned that general liability insurance, purchased by school districts individually or with other districts, would not include COVID-19-related claims. Some insurers explicitly said they would not cover pandemic-related expenses, and some plans never included communicable diseases in the coverage.”

Being irresponsible is something to stay away from and in this matter so is being careless. Instead of enforcing proper restrictions like other schools they now have to directly take funding away from students to fight this lawsuit. Not only are students going to be battling COVID-19 but also the lack of resources available when the county has to spend their own money. Knowing that they were not covered it would’ve made sense for the school district to implement proper restrictions to steer away from claims and lawsuits but instead, they hit it head-on.