The Palm Beach County School District has overridden Governor DeSantis. 

Starting Monday, August 23, the Palm Beach County School District will start a new mask mandate. There’s been an increase in COVID-19 cases since schools have opened up on August 10. The result of the mask mandate was due to multiple cases of COVID-19 within the Palm Beach County Schools.

Broward County has also voted for a mask mandate for all students.

COVID-19 has made such an impact on high school students. We lost an incredible year that was supposed to be filled with social interactions, extra curricular activities, and discovering our identities. So much stress and depression was added to the regular amount of stress the average high school student experienced prior to the pandemic.

Not knowing when COVID-19 is going to be over, or if we’re going to have to go back on lockdown is adding to that stress. The situation is so dire and we have no indication from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) whether COVID-19 will be truly over anytime soon. 

Hopefully, the new mask mandate will help to curb the increasing number of students and teachers who are getting sick, so we can return to some sense of normalcy this year.