WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Gallagher slammed Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) Superintendent Keith Polsey for going against the guidance of health officials and proposing to bring back mask mandates in Milwaukee Public Schools, and called on the MPS Board to reject the proposal.
In a video, Gallagher said, “Masking impacts our kids, particularly young kids, extremely negatively. It impedes their development, their ability to socialize, and it is having a profoundly negative psychological impact on our kids…Now, these bureaucrats want to go back to that and punish our kids further, because of their own fear? Please, MPS board, reject this. Where is the Governor — who fashions himself as an educator who cares about kids — in arguing against this?”
Under the proposal, which the MPS Board will vote on Thursday, kids would be required to wear masks if 10% or more of the city’s COVID-19 tests come back positive within one week. The current COVID-19 positivity rate in the city of Milwaukee is over 16%.
Watch the congressman’s video HERE or read the full transcript below:
“Yesterday, it was reported that the superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools is going to go against the recommendations of local and national health officials and recommend re-masking kids. We’re talking about re-masking kids due to the coronavirus. Have you learned nothing over the last two years?
“There is no scientific or health reason to do this. Masking didn’t work with kids with previous variants, and with the current variant, given the infectiousness, unless you’re wearing an N95 mask perfectly at all times — which no kid ever in the history of things is capable of doing — it is not going to do a darn thing.
“Adults who are afraid of COVID-19 have had access to vaccines and boosters for a long time. Schools have been given billions of dollars to improve air quality and ventilation and things like this. This makes no sense.
“And what have we learned? It’s that masking impacts our kids, particularly young kids, extremely negatively. It impedes their development, their ability to socialize, and it is having a profoundly negative psychological impact on our kids. And oh, by the way, we’re still dealing with massive learning loss due to shutdowns of schools and masking of kids.
“And now, these bureaucrats want to go back to that and punish our kids further, because of their own fear? Please, MPS board, reject this. And where is the Governor — who fashions himself an educator who cares about the kids — in arguing against this?
“Re-masking kids would be so stupid, it’s hard to put into words. There is no justification for forcing kids to wear masks, given where we are with this virus right now.”