Teachers union demands kids mask up despite school district's plan to let them breathe freely

The teacher's union for Ocean County, New Jersey, the largest in the state, is pushing back against a superintendent's request to make masks optional in the district's schools.

New Jersey's coronavirus numbers continue to improve tremendously, with new cases down 77 percent from a month ago. However, the union feels that these numbers aren't good enough for students to go maskless yet.

According to NJ.com, Steven Baker, the representative for the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), stated:

"NJEA continues to advocate for taking all necessary measures to protect the health and safety of all students and staff. Current medical guidance continues to recommend masking for all unvaccinated individuals, a group that includes the vast majority of the students in our public schools."

"We should not take any risks or shortcuts as we work to emerge from this pandemic."

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy lifted the mask requirement on May 13 for people who are outdoors, and on May 15 he abrogated most of the capacity restrictions previously in place due to the pandemic.

However, the indoor masking requirement still applies in the state of NJ as of the date of this writing, making NJ one of the few states to not have fully updated their guidelines based on recent recommendations by the CDC, which iterated that people who are fully vaccinated shouldn't need to wear masks anymore.