At the beginning of this school year, even as Delta surged temporarily, we persisted—this time taking down the improvised desk dividers and making masks optional even as our hospital put up a tent outside. That choice may strike some people as reckless. But I mean this as apolitically as possible: Removing mandatory masks from the classroom was the most significant factor in returning our kids to normalcy. Dismissing the practice as “no big deal” seems premature at best, given the limited data on its long-term effects on developing children and the likelihood that it is impeding communication between students and teachers. Parents can reasonably worry about the effects of a highly masked environment on children who have hearing loss or sensory-processing disorders or who could simply benefit from seeing their teacher’s mouth form th rather than ph in a phonics lesson…

When the Delta wave threatened to close classrooms in the fall because of a lack of substitute teachers, parents, community members, and even district administrators stepped in to fill the gap, and we kept schools open. As Omicron surges, we’re all committed to doing the same. (It helps that our educators quarantine only if they test positive, not solely on the basis of classroom exposure.) To put it simply, our community has decided that school is essential. Imagine if, at any point in the pandemic, society had collectively decided that hospitals and grocery stores should close because they too are vectors for infection. Where would we be?