Chicago City Wire

Children attending St. Christina School are not being granted the option to attend school without masks, despite an appellate court ruling affirming a lower court’s ruling and noting the unconstitutionality of the practice. 

The Archdiocese of Chicago is following the City of Chicago’s code instead of the court rulings. 

School principal Karen Degner noted the continued use of masks in a letter to parents. 

"Good Morning St. Christina Families,

You may be aware that late last night, an Illinois appellate court dismissed Governor Pritizker's appeal of a lower court's ruling which blocked his mask mandate in schools. I am sure that you are anxious to learn how this impacts our archdiocesan city schools. At the current moment, we are still bound to city health department decisions and city ordinances. We also are bound to archdiocesan decisions. We anticipate that last night's ruling may cause a domino effect, but no decisions have been made as of this morning.

Please note that we will go mask-optional when it is approved by the city health department and the archdiocese. For those who have reservations about going mask-optional, please know all other COVID-19 mitigations will remain in place. I will continue to keep the lines of communication open and will share any updates I receive with all of our families. Thank you for your continued support for our school and students 

Mrs. Karen Degner" 


The schools' continued masking stance comes just after a late Thursday ruling from Illinois’s Fourth District Appellate Court. 

St. Christina School was one of the first in the state to see parent and student protests seeking to lift the mask mandate. 

Parents, after being ignored for over a year for seeking an audience with Archdiocese officials, have opted to have their kids unmask once in school. Those students, in turn, have been segregated by Degner and others in the school’s library. 

Degner joined the school as principal in August 2021 and is in her first academic year. 

Pritzker has now appealed that ruling in what will likely be a final attempt to keep kids masked indefinitely. 

That Fourth District backed up an earlier ruling by Sangamon County Judge Raylene Grischow overturning the mask mandate. 

In that ruling, Grischow said Pritzker’s blanket state of emergency orders for schools in the form of mask and test mandates through the Illinois Department of Public Health were "null and void." She said the governor and his agencies have been mandating rules upon students illegally.

The Archdiocese continues to take the city and the governor’s lead instead of following the courts. 

Despite suffering back-to-back losses regarding the constitutionality of his mask mandate and other executive orders, Pritzker is still suggesting masks be worn. 

Pritzker "urges everyone to continue following the doctors’ advice to wear masks so students can remain safely learning in classrooms," Pritzker Administration spokesperson Jordan Abudayyeh said in a statement.

In contrast to Pritzker’s statements, several peer-reviewed studies have shown that common cloth masks worn by 84 percent of the population of mask-wearers have no effect on virus transmission.