Lincolnwood School District Misled Teachers, Community

This is not about masks vs. no masks. Lincolnwood School District 74 (D74) teachers are not against parent choice for masking. This is about the efforts by the District to mislead their reasons for not collaborating with the community to discuss how to implement changes on masking, a change that is inevitably coming.

A decision made in haste and not in good faith by Lincolnwood School District in the evening of Sunday February 6th to reverse their mask policy led to self-inflicted chaos, confusion, and for some, excitement to learn that masks now were “recommended” but not mandatory. Superintendent Dr. Nasshan hosted three meetings with staff between Monday and Tuesday to explain how this happened so quickly and without guidance. In all three meetings her message was the same, essentially that the District was bound legally by a court ruling and had no choice but to make this change - after 8:00pm on a Sunday night.

On Tuesday, February 8th, District 74 sent out a weekly newsletter, “Tuesday Newsday” which addressed in more detail the events that led up to reversal of policy. In that newsletter, District 74 committed multiple contradictions that have misled the teachers, staff, and the community. Here are the three of them:

• D74 was not named in the lawsuit that placed the restraining order on the Governor’s mask mandate. D74 said “non-named Plaintiffs and School Districts throughout this State may govern themselves accordingly” as an explanation for why the district chose to reverse their policy.

Dr. Nasshan told staff we were required to change our mask policy, but this implies that the District chose to "govern themselves." That was the reason that the District didn’t bargain with the Union or survey the community. The truth is that D74 could have “governed themselves” by keeping the mask requirement or by making a timeline to switch to mask recommended/optional. Why didn’t they? I don’t know.

• Then D74 says: “Following an ongoing dialogue between Board of Education members, District administrators, and legal counsel, the District has chosen to recommend that our school community continue to follow the established COVID-19 mitigation protocols already in place.”

The key words here are "chosen to recommend." The District didn't say, "was forced by court ruling to recommend that our school..." This implies the district chose to reverse their policy. Again, Dr. Nasshan told all teachers and staff that the district had no choice, and that is why D74 didn’t engage in a discussion for the best and most responsible way to make that change. But they told the community they did choose this. Why different messaging? I don’t know, teachers and families weren’t brought in to collaborate.

• D74 rushed this through without a public Board of Education meeting to give the community a chance to explain their thoughts. Their explanation was, “the timing of the TRO and this decision did not allow for the scheduling of a special meeting to take place prior to the start of school on Monday [2/7/22]. In September, 2021, the Board, by formal resolution, previously authorized the Superintendent to monitor and implement changes to the developed plan between regular meetings.”

Dr. Nasshan had been given full authority to "implement changes," which should mean that she had the full authority to decide when this would happen. If the District was going to insist on this change to mask wearing, she could have chosen the timeline like other schools have done. The BOE had empowered her to do that, but she told the staff that “her hands were tied.”

Why did the District not hold a public Board meeting before changing policy? I don’t know.

Why did the District mislead the staff as to why this choice was made? I don’t know.

Removing our masks is a day we all look forward to. The teachers in D74 were willing to discuss this inevitable change and were assured by Dr. Nasshan and a member of the BOE said that they would be part of a discussion when that day came. I would hope that all in the community, with different opinions about masks, would want the District to make this change in the best way for teachers, students and their families. The District had the option to do so, but chose not to, then misled us about their process. Why be so misleading? I don’t know, maybe we'll find out one day.