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Starting Tuesday, students will be expected to wear masks in schools and at child care facilities, following the latest mandate issued by Gov. Tom Wolf in response to a high transmission rate of COVID-19 statewide.
Some will say the governor is trying to remove the power from local school districts to make decisions based on what is best for their area.
While we are sympathetic to this argument and still advocate for the principle of local governance, the tenor of the debate has forced us to reconsider the matter on this specific point and at this specific time.
We'll be honest, this has been a difficult position to develop. We firmly believe local people should be the ones making the decisions, yet we question, based on what we've observed at assorted school board meetings over the summer, if school leaders aren't being intimidated.
Shouldn't they be permitted to make decisions after hearing out the debate without being shouted down?
As we now see it, the governor is removing an extremely high level of stress from school boards that have been besieged by those against masking.
In so doing, Gov. Wolf is throwing himself on the sword for the sake of doing what is best to keep schools open and to keep students -- including children under 12 who are not yet eligible for vaccination -- as safe as possible.
We have not agreed with many of Gov. Wolf's decisions since the pandemic began, and we are not thrilled about this one.
But we see a need to come together and collectively agree to do what is needed to overcome COVID and the raging delta variant.
Consider what two groups -- the Pennsylvania State Education Association and the Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians -- are saying.
As Chris Lilenthal, PSEA president, observed, reports of schools in other states shutting down or quarantining large numbers of students because of the more contagious delta variant show that it is "just too risky to teach students in person with dramatically fewer protections than we used last year."
"This isn't a choice between masking or not masking," he said. "It is a choice between keeping schools open for in-person learning or forcing far too many students to learn from the other side of a screen."
We should also heed the words coming from the medical community.
"Based on the current high levels of community spread of COVID-19, today's decision by Sec. Beam and Gov. Wolf is timely and appropriate," Dr. Tiffany Leonard, president of the state Academy of Family Physicians, said Tuesday.
"The CDC has recommended that masks be worn in schools regardless of vaccination status, and evidence suggests that masks do help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The most important issue is keeping our children healthy and in the classroom."
This is true -- our focus should be on keeping children healthy and not on arguing about masks.
Remember, children are the future -- let's support their ability to get to that future and realize the return to freedom that will come once we overcome COVID.