Last week, the Round Rock Independent School District passed a new mask mandate that requires students to wear masks, with the only way to opt-out being medical conditions that restrict their ability. The mandate was passed last Thursday, but it has not made much difference. Honestly, the only real change that has been made is teachers mentioning it once a week or so, and certain people are still ignoring it.

Regardless of this new rule, many students still pull their masks under their noses and faces, and some don’t wear one at all. This puts everyone else in close contact with them at a much greater risk of contracting COVID-19, and the vaccine does not protect against the new Delta variant. In addition, students exposed to this virus could spread it to their families, which would cause an even more significant chain reaction.

“I’m gonna say at least three to four [students] in a class [aren’t wearing a mask correctly], but in some classes there are definitely more,” Sobhisri Suthakar ‘24 said. “ If I’m kind of near them, I’d rather not be, because they aren’t wearing their masks.”

Even though the teachers are taking precautions by having students fill out a seating form every day, it only accounts for the classroom. There’s no way of knowing who is in contact with who in the halls, considering how crowded they get during the passing period. Every student knows how awful the halls can get during this time, and there isn’t a way to avoid being in close contact with others. If there were a system of staggering release times by classroom (such as even-numbered classrooms leaving two minutes before the bell), everyone would be safer, and the halls wouldn’t have as much traffic. However, the only issue is that students would get to class at different times, so tardiness would have to be excused. This is completely reasonable because if someone has the option to take a safer, more open route to class and has to risk being a minute or two late to class, it would be worth it.

“I feel completely unsafe in the hallways,” an anonymous student said. “Everyone is pushing and shoving trying to get to class and if one of them has Covid, then it’s over for the rest of us. Also, I feel like people don’t understand just how small Westwood really is. There’s really only two main hallways to get from one class to the other on the first floor. So no matter what I do, I will always be in close contact with someone. And the fact that a lot of students don’t wear masks is just really annoying.”

I also believe that there should be more effort to enforce the mask mandate to its core purpose – for almost every student to remain masked. Whether it be a teacher asking a student to pull their mask up during class or teachers standing in the halls asking students to put their masks on, anything would be more helpful than how things are currently. Doing this would cause more people to wear their masks because no one wants to be stopped by a teacher in the halls. If there are repeat offenders who consistently are not wearing their masks, there should be some small repercussions because the safety of students is more important than someone who chooses not to wear a mask when they are able to.

People also need to realize that it doesn’t take much for school to be closed again, and of course, no one wants school to shut down again, because for most of us, this is our first time being back to in-person learning in over a year. Everyone wants to be able to see their friends during class and learn in a manner that isn’t through a computer screen.  If more people took wearing their masks more seriously, this wouldn’t be as much of a worry.

Overall, I’m very thankful and glad that our district took the initiative to pass the mandate in the first place, and it’s one of the first steps towards a safer school environment. However, we are far from perfect. There are many preventative measures we should take, but everyone is learning together, and as long as we continue to, we can get back to the sense of normalcy that we all miss.