Pilot Fed Judge rules ADA applies to students
Briefly the parents of 12 students at increased risk from COVID can ask their school districts to require masks.
The Americans with Disabilities Act does require reasonable accommodations but does not specify they be what the disabled person asks.
I would suggest it would be a more reasonable accommodation to provide the individual at-risk children with full face, positive pressure respirators than to require 300 kids at a school to wear masks. And safer for the affected kid as well.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
I think the actual ask was for in the CLASSROOM, not the entire school.
From the story ..” a requirement that their classmates wear masks.”
Also form the judge’s decision: “Moon found that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the executive order and new state law “are preempted by federal law, to the extent that they prevent or limit Plaintiffs’ schools or school districts from considering Plaintiffs’ individualized requests that some amount of masking is necessary as a ‘reasonable modification’ to that otherwise applicable Virginia law.”
He wrote that the public interest is served by permitting their school districts to consider their individualized requests.”
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I get that, but the ADA requires reasonable accommodations, not whatever the person asks.
I maintain that hospital grade protective gear provides greater protection than masking(if that provides any benefit at all) and does not place a burden on dozens or hundreds of others.
I would say at most that the ADA would require the school to provide the gear rather than the parents.
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I’m not sure if the ADA requires schools to provide that kind of accommodation, especially if the parents are satisfied with masks worn by all of the classmates.
Referring to the protection of children as a “burden” goes against a lot of what you said yesterday.
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Wearing masks is a burden to children,
We are seeing huge problems with speech and reading as a result.
The goal is to protect the vulnerable as effectively as possible while keeping the burden on others low.
In my view, based on what research is available on masking in schools, is that universl masking provides minimal protection for maximum burden on others. Positive pressure full face respirators provide hospital level protection and pose no burden on others, and probably less burden on the child wearing it than conventional masks.
This photo is from an industrial use but it shows what they look like
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The operative words are “reasonable accommodations”. In many cases there are no accommodations at all and then there are subjective accommodations that an activist judge may consider reasonable even though everyone has undue hardship to accommodate only a few that a reasonable judge would consider too burdensome. I am disable but reasonable and have concern for what burdens I expect others to bare on my behalf and it isn’t much. Today’s society is fraught with selfish nannies who think their issues are more important than everyone else’s hence a lawsuit and a ruling like this.
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True, Any one of those parents could have gone out and bought hospital grade protection for a lot less than the legal costs and then it wouldn’t have mattered what the other kids did.
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Got it! I guess collective support for all is something beyond the grasp of folks such as yourself and Mr. Smith. Children especially are only pawns for political gain.
By the way, both sides of the suit considered it a win for all.
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When ‘collective support’ imposes a useless burden for ineffective results, yep, that is beyond me.
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Useless burden? OK fine. YOU pay for the medical devices you are advocating for, when simple masks make enough of a difference for the students and their parents to be comfortable..
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The positive pressure respirators are nearly 100% effective, universal masking is no more than 15% effective with Omicron.
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I and a vast majority collectively support the notion that self centered jerks get their heads out of their butts and take care of their own problems with reasonable consideration of others instead of expecting others to bow to their wishes. Simple, no?
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“I and a vast majority collectively “…
Ya got names of that majority or are you just pulling shit out of thin air again?
The vast majority of AMERICANS support protecting children. ALL children.
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So?
Protect them. Use adequate protective gear on the vulnerable children, and don’t inflict useless face fashion on the others to create a false illusion of safety.
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