On the first day of school this year, I walked into Greenwood High School with a sense of uncertainty. It is my senior year, meaning I have spent almost half of my high school experience navigating a historic pandemic, with all the disruption that entails. It is my senior year, and I am afraid I won’t spend much of it at school.

My district, like many across the country, began the school year with a mask-optional policy. This seemed like an easy decision to make; after all, many had spent the summer not wearing masks in public places following the lift of the masking mandate in June. However, the environment created in schools is unique; students spend large swaths of time in close proximity and often engage with one another during group work, meals and extracurriculars.

Because of the policy, the majority of the students did not wear masks. We learned rather quickly that this was a mistake, especially after a series of 50-plus quarantines within the first three days shrank class sizes and sent students home. Warren County Public Schools changed its mask policy and began requiring masks during the school day, though we are still dealing with the fallout of the original policy, including an extremely high number of quarantines as more and more people test positive.

The change in policy was met with outrage, especially from Warren County parents, which worsened when Gov. Andy Beshear issued an executive order mandating masks in schools across Kentucky. This was met with partisan outrage and was soon taken up by the Kentucky legislature following an emergency order from the Kentucky Board of Education and the Kentucky Department of Public health that mandated masks.

On Aug. 17, advocates for and against masking met in Frankfort to testify to the Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee. Two members of the Kentucky Student Voice Team, high school students Pragya Upreti and Audrey Gilbert, spoke to subcommittee members and urged them to place emphasis on the health of the commonwealth over individual comfort and freedoms.

KSVT members testified first, drawing on their experiences as high school students and their expertise as student researchers who had collected data from nearly 10,000 other Kentucky youths grappling with the impacts of COVID-19. “This is not an issue of partisan politics or popularity,” Gilbert said from the hearing table. The testimonies that followed, however, undermined that hope. Numerous adults subsequently testified against masking students after questioning the efficacy of masks and reiterating lines from the Declaration of Independence to claim that choosing to wear a mask is a personal liberty. One specifically commented on Upreti and Gilbert’s testimony, questioning their mental health after they said their peers not wearing masks worries them.

The disrespect disguised as concern and the cheers it received from the crowd in the gallery underscored the disconnect: the same people who maintained that requiring universal masking would unduly harm students also openly disparaged students who came to a public meeting to express concerns about their own safety. In addition to the disheartening discourse inside, a small crowd of protesters gathered outside the Capitol while the subcommittee met.

The subcommittee eventually declared the order deficient, though Beshear said the mandate should remain in place.

The rate of COVID-19 in schools among children is alarming, and it is anti-mask rhetoric that’s at least partly to blame. As a student, and especially as a senior, I consider the prospect of moving to virtual schooling frightening, as I do the negligence of some in the Kentucky legislature. The pandemic already worsens inequities that exist in education and exacerbates the youth mental health crisis. Further, virtual school widens the gap, as it is a primary contributor to students falling behind academically and suffering socially and emotionally. Attending the subcommittee’s meeting and witnessing the polarization around what should be a simple public health decision to protect the most vulnerable and ensure we can remain in school solidified my concerns.

It is absolutely necessary that we remain in school to address the damage that was done to education by the pandemic, and wearing masks makes it much safer to do so. Effective masking minimizes the number of quarantines, meaning more students are able to stay in class. While many schools, like my own, did not begin the school year with a mask requirement, the rapidly climbing rate of hospitalization and spread of COVID-19 among children has ushered in a new sense of exigency across the nation.

It is time for the Kentucky legislature to listen to the voices of young people. Protecting our students should be our No. 1 priority, which is why universal masking is necessary for this school year. If we really want to address learning loss and work to rectify the inequities in education, it is in the best interests of Kentucky youths to mask up this semester.

– Norah Laughter is a Greenwod High School student and co-editor-in-chief of the Student Voice Forum.