Chicago City Wire

Mother of four Cori Fagan is disappointed in the Archdiocese of Chicago for disrespecting the families and their wishes to remove COVID-19 protocols from her children’s school. 

Fagan, 43, sends her kids to St. Christina School in Chicago’s south side where they have been masking for nearly two years now.

“Enough is enough,” Fagan told Chicago City Wire. “We've we've done this long enough. You know, we've complied all the way through.” 

The school has required masks since reopening in 2020.

“We've been very appreciative in 2020 when our school opened back up, the teachers were amazing and they still are, and our kids were able to get some of the social emotional/learning once again as well as academics,” she said. “But then 2021 comes along and it's like, OK, come on, we're still doing this?"

Fagan said the situation is especially troubling for her son.

“I have a son who's five, and he's delayed in speech and it does not help having his face covered - half of his face covered - and all of his friends' faces covered,” she said. “He’s struggling. It's his first year in school there, and it hasn't been an easy one for him, and I think it's setting him up for a future of really not being a fan of school.”

Fagan believes the environment is having a dramatic impact on education.

"This is really screwing up the foundation of our community, which is our little children who are going to grow up and be the leaders of our community. What they will win. We need to train them up good first,” she said.  

Watching others pronounce words is a type of cognitive development used by children and adults alike that kids are missing out on.

Fagan said her other children are affected by the environment as well.

“I have a 9-year-old who loves school, straight-A student, and she's been having anxiety lately about going to school,” she said.

Mask fatigue has set in for many parents like Fagan. In addition, students are increasingly being segregated within the schools based on vaccine status, she says.

“We want to go back to the days where we were able to choose what how we wanted to conduct our children's medical situations,” she said.

Fagan, who is also a substitute teacher, said the masks are likely having the opposite effect anyway.

“Let's be honest, their noses are running or they're drooling or whatever, and it's soaking into their mask. And so they're sitting there basically waterboarding themselves with their own snot saliva. You know, it's it's really unsanitary, and that's that's a whole other thing. I mean, these masks are disgusting, but there's no way everybody is completely sanitary and not putting their fingers on their mouth or licking it or whatever.”

Cardinal Blase Cupich, the Archbishop of Chicago, has openly supported Gov. J.B. Pritzker's COVID-19 measures.

Cupich recently required students to wear masks at recess but has since reversed course. Despite his rules on schoolchildren, Cupich entertained guests at a Christmas party last year without a mask.

“We want choices for our children,” Fagan said. “And that's the bottom line. We just want to protect them and keep them safe and make the best decisions we can for them.”