As of July 16th, 2020, everyone within the Springfield City Limits was required to be masked in public. Nearly nine months later this ordinance is still in effect. While COVID-19 is still greatly impacting our community we have been able to see returns to normalcy throughout the city, after almost a year of the COVID-19 pandemic overrunning our world, will Springfield see the mask ordinance lifted in the near future?

The mask ordinance currently in effect requires that anyone within the Springfield city limits over the age of 11 must be masked if they are in public. The only exclusions for this rule are those with underlying health conditions, or when parties are outside/exercising with at least 6 feet of distance between themselves and others. This has affected each and every one of us requiring masks at school, sports games, etc. everyone at Kickapoo Highschool has been affected by this ordinance one way or another.

When the ordinance was set into place on July 16th it was set to be lifted on January 9th of this year, however just a few weeks before this date, Springfield city council choose to extend it through April 9th. With this date now less than a month away citizens of Springfield are watching and waiting to see whether we will be mask-free or if we have another few months of this ordinance ahead of us. As of right now the Springfield City Council and Springfield CDC have not said anything about the ordinance being extended yet again. All eyes are fixed on our city government leaders to see whether the ordinance will truly be lifted. If it is then all businesses will be able to choose their own masking policies and the Springfield City Limits will no longer be the boundaries for masking restrictions. However, this also means that if the ordinance is lifted, it will be up to SPS to choose whether or not students (including ourselves) Will be required it wear masks through the remainder of the school year.