Unmasked and unvaccinated students should be allowed to stay in class

Student learning and well-being must be the priority after extended school closures

With mask mandates now common across the United States and some districts even imposing vaccine mandates on students, the risk is that children unwilling or unable to comply with these mandates — those with special needs who can’t mask or living in vaccine hesitant homes — will face yet another year of the “suboptimal alternative” that is virtual instruction.

These situations will be tragic and violate child rights, given virtual instruction is incapable of replacing a classroom environment with caring peers and teachers:

Schools deliver essential functions beyond education that cannot be delivered online, including the opportunity for real-life interactions with peers, which is essential for healthy development

Doctors Vinay Prasad and Marty Makary both note that shutting children out of school for non-compliance with coronavirus mandates would be bad for the health of impacted children and disproportionately affect certain communities: