Philly Superintendent: We Don’t Think Mask Mandate Will Hurt Learning, ‘We’ve Done This Before’

On Tuesday’s edition of NBC’s “Morning News Now,” Philadelphia School District Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. said that due to the fact that they’ve had a mask mandate before “we don’t think that learning will stop or that students will be inherently prohibited from learning” as the district reimposes its mask mandate.

Co-host Savannah Sellers asked, “[I]s there any concern with just student’s ability to learn with those masks on? We know that was another thing we heard a lot from parents, from teachers, is that it was difficult for students to be keeping those on in the classroom. How do you handle that in your school district?”

Watlington said, “We think that, certainly, it’s not the most desired state over the long term, but we’re using some commonsense measures and we’ve done this before. So, we think we’re going to make it through these ten days and we don’t think that learning will stop or that students will be inherently prohibited from learning. Although, we certainly hope that we are all doing our part in the city to get tested, to stay home when we’re sick, to wash our hands, and do those mitigation strategies so that we can limit this masking experience to ten days.”

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