Dupage Policy Journal

Glenbard West High School Principal Peter Monaghan was caught on camera maskless, in a throng of maskless fans over the weekend at the Wintrust Arena. But he is still taking a hard line on masks with students, even after a downstate judge declared the state's mask mandate "null and void."

In emails to parents Sunday, Monaghan said students will not be granted entrance into the high school if not wearing a mask.

“Just to be clear, students who refuse to wear masks tomorrow will not be permitted to remain indoors on campus,” Monaghan said in an email provided to DuPage Policy Journal.

Monaghan was front and center in a photo taken during Glenbard West's loss to Sierra Canyon by three points on Feb. 5. 

"The Glenbard West community came out in full force Saturday, filling Wintrust Arena with fans," a Chicago Sun-Times article noted. 

Monaghan did not respond to a phone call from the DuPage Policy Journal. 

Monaghan is not the first to be caught enforcing masking rules in public and then eschewing the practice in private. 

Gov. J.B. Pritzker himself was infamously caught on camera last year toasting in an English pub without a mask. 

Several districts are going mask optional after a downstate court order overturning Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s mandate.

Parents across the state have also been vowing to send their children to school without masks today in the wake of the court ruling.

Parents and students from other area schools reported students being isolated or segregated and corralled into auditoriums and gyms.

Video at Hinsdale Central High School shows hundreds of maskless students in an auditorium, held out of the general population.

A Hinsdale Middle School parent notably reported his son was segregated from the school population for not wearing a mask, despite being included in the court order.

Attorney Tom DeVore said the school districts included in the restraining order must only unmask the children who were named as plaintiffs. However, he noted the bulk of the school districts included in his suit have denied to go mask optional. Other schools have already gone mask optional as well.

A downstate court order overturned Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s mask mandate in part on Friday, Feb. 4.

In a 30-page ruling Friday night, Sangamon County Judge Raylene Grischow declared Pritzker's blanket state emergency school rules on masks and tests through the Illinois Department of Public Health "null and void." She said the governor and his agencies have been mandating rules upon students illegally.

“Statutory rights have attempted to be bypassed through the issuance of Executive Orders and Emergency Rules … This type of evil is exactly what the law was intended to constrain," she wrote.

“Remind students that we are safe in school with or without a mask. Remind them that we wash our hands and stay home when we are sick/not feeling well,” the email reads.

An appeal by Gov. J.B. Pritzker to reinstate the ban is pending.

"Does that Face Mask Really Protect You," a 2010 research article by Dr. Larry E. Bowen of the Southern Research Institute in Birmingham, Ala., fit various types of masks on a mannequin to study their effectiveness, found that wearing surgical, bandana and dust masks offer "very little protection" and concluded that "wearing these face masks may produce a false sense of protection."

Glenbard West notably canceled its Heart Hop Dance this year as well but let other school events, like a basketball tournament proceed.