Impact of Mask Mandates on K-12 and Higher-Ed Teaching along with the Recommendation for Mask-Wearing during an Infectious Disease Outbreak

Abstract

Mask mandates were used as a multilayered approach to prevent the spread of the COVID-19. The state of New Mexico had one of the longest indoor mask mandates during the pandemic. We surveyed the K-12 teachers located throughout the state as well as higher-ed faculty members at New Mexico Tech to determine the impact of mask mandates on their teaching. Many instructors indicated minor problems, especially their ability to judge students’ engagement and/or participation. While some reported that their classrooms adopted masks as a new norm and it has become part of their school lives with no major issues. Some instructors did report negative impacts because of the participants’ opposition to mask-wearing. Two of the instructors provided unique perspectives by comparing secondary school vs. higher-education (higher-ed) teaching during the pandemic. Moreover, three K-12 teachers who worked with hearing-impaired students reported the initial issues of being unable to use facial expressions; however, they also noted their students learned to sign with masks on. Collectively the benefits of masks in slowing the spread of COVID-19 outweigh many of the communication issues noted here. After the mask mandate was lifted in February 2022, instructors reported general excitement and/or social awkwardness in some cases.

1. Introduction

Illness caused by SARS-CoV-2, a novel coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) outbreak, was declared a global pandemic by the WHO on 11 March 2020 [1]. As of March 2022, COVID-19 has infected over 450 million people worldwide and caused at least 6 million deaths [2]. The world was not prepared for a pandemic at that scale including fundamental resources for communities, critical guidance for policymakers and healthcare professionals as well as a lack of essentials such as PPE (personal protective equipment) and insufficient hospital beds based on the population size [3,4]. Various countries adopted different mitigation measures that included stay-at-home orders, quarantining if infected or exposed, use of face coverings, and mask mandates [3]. In the United States, all 50 states and the District of Columbia adopted their individual measures to include if and when people were required to wear masks in public places.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected at least 1.6 million students’ education in over 200 countries, closure of schools has affected more than 94% of students worldwide [5]. A sudden shift to remote learning has not only impacted education and learning but has also created a severe mental health crisis in K-12 [6] as well as college students [7,8]. Various studies noted that teachers were showing signs of burnout and stress even before the pandemic [9,10,11], however COVID-19 related disruptions made situation worst for them. Reopening of the K-12 schools and higher-ed institutions was predicted to increase the spread of COVID-19 and therefore many states implemented guidelines including keeping 6 or at least 3 feet distancing in the classrooms, universal facemask-wearing, testing, and quarantining after exposure. Along with several other previous reports, a recent study has shown a direct association of mask mandates with a decrease in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths [12]. Other studies have shown more COVID-19 cases in areas without K-12 school mask mandates [13,14,15]. Moreover, a recent study of over 1.1 million students and 157,000 school staff members across nine states, comparing mask optional and mask required school districts suggested a 3.5 times higher COVID transmission rate in mask optional schools. For every 100 community-acquired cases, universally masked districts had 7.3 cases in comparison optionally masked districts had 26.4 [16]. It is essential to follow the science to prevent the spread of COVID-19 however teaching and learning with face masks have their own challenges [17]. Students had difficulty reading and expressing facial expressions when everyone was masked [18]. With face masks, students also had trouble recalling spoken sentences [19]. Studies have shown that masks impact auditory and audiovisual consonant recognition in children; however, using well-fit transparent masks is shown to improve some of the communication issues [20]. Overall, in-person learning with universal masking appears to have benefits over remote learning both in regard to improved education and mental health issues; however, further research is required to draw definitive conclusions.

The state of New Mexico implemented one of the strictest COVID-19 prevention protocols since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020. The stay-at-home instructions [21] implemented in March 2020 required a hundred percent of the non-essential workforce to work from home, and the restrictions on gatherings and business capacities were not lifted until 30 June 2021 [22]. All New Mexico (NM) K-12 public schools were closed for in-person learning for the remainder of the 2019–2020 academic year [23]. Only the elementary schools were allowed to reopen for in-person learning in September 2020 with limited capacity. While the middle and high schools did not open for in-person learning till February 2021. New Mexico’s indoor mask mandate was briefly lifted between May and August 2021 however it was quickly re-imposed due to a surge in COVID-19 cases related to the Delta variant [24]. The indoor face mask mandate was lifted again on 17 February 2022, after the case numbers due to the Omicron variant significantly declined [25]. Therefore, during the academic years, 2020–2021 and 2021–2022 until 17 February 2022, all New Mexico K-12 and higher-ed students were required to wear masks in their classrooms.

This exploratory study reports the challenges K-12 teachers and higher-ed faculty members faced while teaching when everyone was masked due to state-implemented mask mandates. Some of these challenges arose because of politicizing the masks as reported previously [26]. We also found that many of the classroom challenges were overcome when individuals had a positive perspective about the masks. This study includes recommendation from several teachers and faculty members who came up with creative ideas to engage students when communication was impaired due to mask-wearing in classrooms. Overall, the benefits of universal mask-wearing in slowing the spread of COVID-19 outweigh the minor nuances caused by masks in the K-12 and higher-ed classrooms.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Online Survey

The initial survey was conducted using google forms without tracking the participant’s email addresses to ensure anonymity in case they did not want to share personally identifiable information. Participants were informed about the research objectives before participating in the study and were assured that participation was voluntary. The study was conducted in accordance with and was approved by the Institutional Review Board of New Mexico Tech. Two separate surveys were designed to align with K-12 or higher education (higher-ed) faculty members at New Mexico Tech (NMT) classrooms and the questionnaire was focused on teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. The questions included short answer text responses or checkbox options to select more than one response. The complete list of survey questions is included in the supplementary information section. We asked K-12 teachers and higher-ed about the challenges of teaching while the mask mandates were enforced. We sent out the survey questionnaire to K-12 teachers who are associated with our Master of Science for Teachers (MST) program [27] and all faculty members at NMT. Since MST is a distance learning program, there are students who teach across the state of New Mexico as well as some who are located out-of-state. The majority of our participants for this study were located within the state of New Mexico.

2.2. Online Survey Respondents

The K-12 survey was sent to over 200 individuals associated with our Master of Science for Teachers program at New Mexico Tech (NMT). Some of them are current students or recent graduates from the program. We received 45 (n = 45) individual responses from K-12 teachers. The survey for higher-ed (NMT) faculty members was sent to over 150 full-time or part-time instructors’ email addresses. We received 46 (n = 46) responses from the NMT faculty members who taught during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are including a unique perspective from two individuals who taught at NMT as well as at a secondary school during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the NMT instructors taught at high school simultaneously and the co-author, Theresa Apodaca, taught at a middle school in 2019–2020 before taking her current position as an Instructor of Education at NMT where she trains pre-service teachers (some of them also started teaching during the pandemic).

2.3. Online Survey Data Analysis

We used a quantitative approach using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Statistics version 28.0.0 to calculate descriptive frequencies and mean percentages from multiple responses. The default confidence interval (CI) of >95% was used.

2.4. Follow-Up Questions after the Indoor Mask Mandate Was Lifted

After New Mexico’s mask mandate was lifted on 17 February 2022, we sent two follow-up questions to K-12 teachers and higher-ed (NMT) faculty who indicated we can contact them for further inquiries. The questions were as follows:

• Please describe all impacts of the mask mandate in your classrooms.
• What difference did you notice after the mask mandate was relaxed?

2.5. Respondents for the Follow-Up Questions

For the K-12 teacher’s survey, 31 individuals provided their name or email address and said we can contact them with follow-up questions; however, only 22 teachers responded to answer by the deadline of 4 March 2022. Out of these 22 respondents, 18 were female. Twenty-six higher-ed faculty members provided their names when asked if we can contact them. However, we only received 15 responses by the due date, of which 4 were female. The comments from the two instructors who taught both in K-12 and higher-ed settings during the pandemic as well as hearing-impaired classroom teachers were separately analyzed.

2.6. Data Analysis for the Follow-Up Questionnaire

A qualitative approach was utilized and the data were analyzed thematically. All direct comments from the survey participants are italicized. Personnel identifiable information has been removed and text was corrected for any grammatical or typographical errors. The relevant responses to the two follow-up questions were copied verbatim to give the full context of the instructor’s point of view.

3. Results

3.1. K-12 Participant’s Classrooms

We sent the first survey questionnaire to over 200 K-12 teachers who are associated with our Master of Science for Teachers (MST) program. The MST program focuses on training in-service teachers in STEM content and it’s available for individuals from any educational background. We started the survey questions by asking what grade level and subjects they taught during the COVID-19 pandemic, all other survey questions are listed in the supplementary information section. As shown in Figure 1A,C below, the majority of our survey participants taught Science and Mathematics in elementary, middle, and/or high schools. The majority of MST coursework is offered through distance education therefore our program participants are located throughout the United States. The next question asked if their school was located in City, Suburb, Town, Rural, and/or located in New Mexico. To compare the impact of the mask mandate it was important for our study to find out how many respondents taught in the state of New Mexico (NM), therefore we are showing that information in Figure 1B below. If the participants provided their names, we cross-checked their school location with our MST program database. Unknown corresponds to the participants that have not provided their names and only chose City, Suburb, Town, or Rural information. Eighty percent of the survey participant K-12 teachers taught in NM schools. We also asked participants if their school was Title I designated by the federal government [28]. Title I designated schools has additional funds available to support elementary and secondary students from low-income families. As shown in Figure 1D, 80% of our respondents taught at a Title I school; however, not all of them were located in NM.

3.2. Effect of Mask-Wearing in K-12 Classrooms

We received 45 responses from individuals associated with our MST program who mainly taught in K-12 school settings. We asked, “Does mask-wearing have any impact on the way you communicate or teach?” as a multiple response question. The answer options were (1) No, not much, (2) Yes, it is affecting my teaching skills, (3) Yes, not seeing students’ faces affects my ability to judge their engagement/participation/wellbeing, (4) Yes, I had difficulty understanding my students, (5) If other, please explain, or elaborate on an above response below. As shown in Figure 2, the majority (30%) of K-12 teachers responded that mask-wearing affected their ability to judge students’ engagement, participation, and/or wellbeing. About 27% of respondents mentioned having difficulty understanding their students, while 22% said masks affected their teaching skills. At least 21% responded that mask-wearing did not have much impact in their classrooms. The “other” responses were added to the relevant categories of options 1 to 4 if the respondent did not choose one of those options.

3.3. Effect of Mask-Wearing in Higher-Ed Classrooms

We sent a similar survey as in Section 3.2 to all faculty members at New Mexico Tech and received 46 responses. The majority (approximately 30%) of higher-ed faculty also mentioned that masks affected their ability to judge students’ engagement and/or participation (as shown in Figure 3 below). Twenty-eight percent responded as masks had not much impact in their classrooms. Twenty-six percent said having difficulty understanding their students while about 16% said masks affected their teaching skills.

3.4. All Impacts of Mask-Mandate in K-12 Classrooms

When the state of NM lifted its indoor mask mandate on 17 February 2022, we sent follow-up questions to all K-12 survey respondents that provided their names or contact information. In the first follow-up question, we asked “Please describe all impacts of the mask mandate in your classrooms.” The responses we received were separated into the following categories:

3.4.1. No Major Impact on Teaching

12 out of 19 responses about the mask mandate were neutral. The main response being that masks were needed to fight COVID-19. (1) After the initial phase of getting used to masks, myself and my students have gotten used to them being part of our school lives. I notice that during silent work time, the usual chorus of classroom coughing and sniffling is now a thing of the past. I believe this is due to the spread of many airborne infections being slowed down by students wearing masks during the school day. I myself have not had a cold in 2 years, which is quite nice!

3.4.2. Communication and Socializing

14 out of 19 said communication with students was somewhat impaired whether students were talking or teachers were talking. Additionally, hearing conversations seemed muffled and not being able to see facial expressions hinder students understanding of the material presented. However, out of the 14, seven of the teachers stated that they and students felt safer with masks on because of the positive outcomes of preventing the spread of COVID. (1). I did struggle to hear students who spoke softly as the mask muffled their speech) and a lot of repetition while teaching became cumbersome. (2). It also became exhausting to have students ask the teacher to repeat. (3) With masks, it is hard to hear students. 90% of human communication is non-verbal. We both miss communicating facial expressions. (4) The biggest impact of mask mandates in the classroom is a decrease in COVID spread. It is an integral part of our multilayered system to prevent COVID transmission. It impacts teaching as I have to project my voice to be able to be heard by students and have some difficulty hearing students when they speak as well.

3.4.3. Classroom Management and Instructional Strategies

11 out of 19 had classroom management issues, albeit not to the extent that it was interfering with behavior. It was more redirection of telling students to properly wear their masks. Four teachers changed their instruction to better fit the needs of all. (1) The main issue with the mask mandate was keeping students wearing masks properly. (2) The impact of mask mandates mostly made things harder to hear. The students had a harder time hearing me and I had a harder time hearing them. However, they got us microphones and that helped. Other than that, our students were generally really good about wearing their masks. Occasionally we had to remind them to pull them up.

3.4.4. Safety

7 out of 19 teachers mentioned that they felt safe with masks on. (1) Impact of the mask mandate was useful because of how physically close students and staff can get in a classroom environment. It definitely made understanding the students more difficult. And, in some cases, it was more difficult for them to understand me speaking too. There were no issues at my school of anyone (student or staff) wanting to not wear their mask.

3.5. Difference in K-12 Classrooms after the Mask-Mandate Was Relaxed

The second follow-up question; “What difference did you notice after the mask mandate was relaxed?”

3.5.1. No Major Impact on Teaching

14 out of 19 teachers responded that their schools adhered to masks being relaxed while five schools kept the mask mandate in place. The schools that followed the relaxation of masks reported that their students and colleagues felt liberated. (1) I’ll admit that I was surprised by how dramatic the change was! On the first day without masks, the morale of the cadets was incredibly high! They were so happy. Even though I was supportive of the mask mandate, I admit that it was very special to see the cadets’ faces for the first time. I feel the best word to describe the mood is “liberating”.

3.5.2. Communication, Socializing and Morale

After the mask mandate was lifted, 15 out of 19 teachers responded that the morale of all was better. (1) The students are definitely much more relaxed. They seem to be socializing more and just overall seem happier since the mask mandate was lifted. Also, there are at least a handful of students in each class and some staff members (including me) who are continuing to wear masks. All of the students seem to be accepting of the choices of other students and not giving others a hard time if their mask choice is different, which makes me happy.

3.5.3. Safety and Respect of Choice

Although the mask mandate was relaxed, some teachers still felt that safety was a factor in going to school. Five schools continued with the mask mandate. (1) My school district is on the Zuni Pueblo reservation, they did not adhere to relaxations in the mask mandate, and masks are still mandated within the reservation’s sovereignty. Visiting with other teachers in NM many of them had fears of COVID-19 breakouts with mask relaxation. Many stated they were going to insist on masks in their classroom, despite relaxation with the mask mandate. (2) I have NOT seen a huge difference now that the mandate was relaxed. I would say that 90% of my students still use their masks as well as myself. They feel comfortable wearing their masks. Everyone is very respectful to the ones that want to use it as well as the ones that do not. (3) For the most part, masked and unmasked people are continuing to exist peacefully within our school. Additionally, people are respecting everyone’s choices.

3.6. All Impacts of Mask-Mandate in Higher-Ed Classrooms

After the state of NM lifted the mask mandate in February 2022, we asked NMT faculty who provided their name and said we can contact them to follow-up “Please describe all impacts of mask mandate in your classrooms”. The responses we received:

3.6.1. No Major Impact on Teaching

9 out of 15 NMT faculty members responded in a neutral manner about the mask mandate. (1) Most of the classes during the pandemic were mid-size (~30 students) and I had relatively smaller classrooms, so masks had no/nominal adverse impact. My students did not raise any concerns regarding the quality of instructions with masks.

3.6.2. Communication, Socializing and Morale

11 out of 15 responded that communication played a factor in teaching. Speaking, hearing, and reading students’ faces were the main issues of lack of communication. Perhaps this is because most professors used lecturing as the main instructional strategy. However, some responses added that students can Zoom or the recording of lectures if something was missed. Out of the 11 responses, 8 instructors felt safe with the mask. (1) Little to no impact. I normalized mask-wearing in my classroom and explained the data of why masks help reduce COVID transmission. I have a loud voice and use a KN95 mask that allows for easy talking (and recommended such masks to my students for the same reason). I also zoom and record all lectures, so if students miss something, they can always go back, and they had the option to not wear a mask because I allowed zoom attendance. (2) The biggest impact was with communication. It was far more difficult to hear each other with our faces covered, and I suspect some students didn’t interact as they normally do due to the challenges of communicating. The Second biggest impact was with visual feedback. Oftentimes, I can look at the class and tell if they are puzzled/unclear about a topic. Those visual cues were lost.

3.6.3. Classroom Management

Six out of 15 responded that the mask mandate had little or no impact on their classroom management. (1) In regards to instruction in my Labs I could not perceive any impact due solely to the mask mandates.

3.6.4. Safety

Two out of fifteen stated that, regardless of issues with masks, it was best to have masks on because of safety reasons. (1) This is more than survey respondents can know. The mask mandate was essential for letting us have in-person interactions and build relationships that motivate students and create a culture of group inquiry. Some students were still kept away from attending in person during the mask mandate, by their diagnosed panic attacks or fears of infecting themselves and family members, even with the mask mandate. I have lectured in a mask both before and now after the mandate was lifted, and I don’t get complaints about the sound level or lip-reading, but I haven’t asked students to tell me how they feel about it unless there’s a problem. It was hard to police the mask mandate. I would not have taught hybrid or face-to-face without the mask mandate.

3.7. Difference in Higher-Ed Classrooms after the Mask-Mandate Was Relaxed

3.7.1. No Major Impact on Teaching

Nine out of 15 were neutral about the mask being relaxed. (1) It seemed mixed with students and teachers still choosing to wear or not to wear masks. All choices were respected.

3.7.2. Communication, Socializing, and Morale

Although communication was a factor for NMT instructors when there was a mask mandate, 10 out of 15 stated that the lifting of the mask mandate has made no impact. (1) I haven’t found any significant difference after the mask mandate is relaxed. As a matter of fact, most stated that they and their students are continuing to wear masks.

3.7.3. Classroom Management

Eight out of 15 stated that students are interacting more and engaging with student activities. (1) Some students seemed to be more relaxed, at least in the first couple of days, and it became pretty "normal." (2) I have noticed very little difference in student activity after the mask mandate was relaxed, in large part I think, because I normalized the mask-wearing at the beginning of the semester.

3.7.4. Safety Comfort and Respect of Choice

Five out of 15 stated that safety is a concern. (1) For some students, it was a concern and requested to join via Zoom because of health concerns to sit in a classroom of 90 students without wearing marks. (2) So far, the difference I have seen is an increasing subset of students giving up masks but about half, of the students, are still wearing masks. The problem I have encountered is one student who is not comfortable coming to class because others are not wearing masks. Consequently, this student wants the class to become hybrid, which is the worst of the three kinds of interactions (F2F is the best and purely Zoom is the second).

3.8. Unique Perspective from Instructors Who Taught Both in K-12 and Higher-Ed Settings during the Pandemic

The first instructor has been teaching both at a local high school as well as at NMT during the pandemic. Their response to compare the impact of mask-mandate at both places: At the high school, the students could not hear each other, and I certainly couldn’t hear them. The biggest impact is that students asked fewer questions, as they knew they would have to repeat it several times. This was the biggest impact on the Navajo students and shy students, where asking questions requires a great deal of courage. At NMT, one of the biggest impacts was in laboratories, where fogging safety glasses were probably a greater concern than wearing a mask, but we were ordered to wear a mask anyhow. The second instructor and co-author in this study Theresa Apodaca taught middle school students until the spring of 2020, then started working as an Instructor of Education at NMT to train pre-service teachers who taught K-12 students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her input on mask-mandate at K-12 schools vs. higher-ed classrooms: I was teaching at the middle school when our school shut down; therefore, I had to switch to online teaching and didn’t have to deal with masks. Instead, technology was challenging. However, when I transitioned to a college setting my students and I wore masks. Everyone was respectful about wearing them and I had no issues with them about wearing masks. Because a strict mask mandate was in place my college students did not complain at all. Also, I told them the procedure of wearing a mask, sanitizing desks before and after class, and social distancing on the first day of the semester and was consistent in enforcing it, so everyone was fine with masks. The only downfall I have about teaching with a mask on is that since I have asthma, I would have a hard time breathing and would have to take a moment to catch my breath while lecturing. I found this to be uncomfortable which interfered with teaching at times. In comparison, when I had to observe student teachers in their mentor classrooms at the middle school and high school, I saw differences in managing masks. Experienced teachers who enforced students to wear masks correctly were respected, whereas student teachers were more casual in telling students to wear masks correctly and in return got an attitude. It seems that consistency was important in having students wear masks from the first day of school. For the most part, my students, most of whom are K-12 teachers, did not discuss any issues with mask-wearing in their classrooms. Although the mask mandate has been lifted, I still wear a mask and the majority of my students do not. It’s nice to see their faces, however, engagement and participation are still low so to remedy that I call out their names.

3.9. Impact of Masks in the Hearing-Impaired Classroom

At least three of our K-12 teachers mentioned working in the hearing-impaired classrooms. The comments received: (1) The impact of the mask mandate was quite big in my classrooms. We communicate using American Sign Language and a large part of our communication comes from facial expressions. With the mask covering our facial expressions it became really hard to understand my students and the other way around as well. We eventually became accustomed to signing with the mask on. (2) I work with students who may have hearing or speech impairments. Communication with them, as well as students who rely on facial expressions, has been difficult in the extreme. (3) The mask mandate has been interesting, to say the least. When I taught at a public school, wearing the mask wasn’t too bad because we took frequent mask breaks. When I changed teaching jobs and started teaching at a school for the deaf, the mask became even more challenging. ASL (American Sign Language) uses a lot of facial expressions, especially around the mouth. Teaching in ASL and wearing a mask is challenging. Second follow-up: Yes, I have gotten used to the masks. I feel that it has become the new norm. There are both pros and cons to masks (especially within school).

3.10. Recommendation for Utilizing Mask-Wearing in the Classrooms

Being consistent in the classroom is key to having students follow the rules. This includes mask-wearing. Teachers who believed masks prevented the spread of COVID-19 made it a priority on the first day of class and modeled wearing the mask throughout the school year or semester. Therefore, it is our recommendation that consistency and following through with K-12 students is a must for classroom management, and wearing a mask is no different than any other rule that is taught at the beginning of the school year.

Because communication was high on the list of being an issue while teaching, it is our recommendation that teachers call on individual students when asking questions; and perhaps change the instructional strategy from being lecture-based to more hands-on learning. Home videos for the assignments are also recommended. A couple of examples from the survey indicated that the teachers tried different strategies: (1) I didn’t mind the mask mandate very much, except for constantly reminding some students to wear them. One of the issues I did see was not being able to "read" student faces for understanding, but I remedied this with different kinds of questions, checking in with students individually, etc. (2) The impact of mask mandates mostly made things harder to hear. The students had a harder time hearing me and I had a harder time hearing them. However, they got us microphones and that helped.

Most importantly, the teachers and students in hearing-impaired classrooms eventually became accustomed to mask-wearing. This and several other responses strongly suggest that many of the classroom challenges were overcome when individuals had a positive perspective about the masks.

4. Discussion

Mask-mandate did present some issues in K-12 and higher-ed classrooms with the majority of instructors concerned about not being able to judge students’ engagement and/or participation as well as difficulty understanding their students. Twenty-two percent of K-12 teachers and 16% of the higher-ed faculty members said it affected their teaching skills. The reason for fewer NMT faculty choosing this option could be because they were able to remove the masks while teaching if they are at least 6 feet away from others. About 21% of K-12 teachers and 28% higher-ed instructors said the mask-mandate did not have much impact on their classrooms and/or teaching.

When asked in the follow-up questions about all impacts of the mask mandate many K-12 teachers responded that mask guidelines became classroom management issues and they had to keep reminding their students to properly wear their masks. Along with students not participating in the discussions and not asking questions. The majority of K-12 teachers did report that students and staff followed masks and COVID-19 guidelines without much of an issue. Some even mentioned that they noticed overall less sickness with airborne diseases partly because of the mask mandate. However, at least one teacher explained in detail their struggle to teach in a politically conservative community where students, parents, and even their fellow teachers were vehemently opposing the mask-wearing. The politizing of the masks have been reported in various studies previously [26]. As described in Section 3.4 the teacher struggled with the mask mandate only because the individuals in their community were so opposed to it. The majority of higher-ed faculty also responded by saying masks only created minor nuances such as difficulty understanding their students’ engagement. One higher-ed faculty seems to suggest masks created breathing issues for students sitting in their classrooms; however, it has been shown by several studies that masks do not have a discernible detrimental effect on blood or muscle oxygenation even with vigorous exercise [29,30]. Many K-12 teachers and NMT faculty mentioned that they explained the importance of mask-wearing in stopping the spread of COVID-19, also they felt safe teaching during the pandemic due to the mask mandates. Some also mentioned that mask-wearing becoming the new norm of their school lives. After the mask mandates were lifted the reactions from K-12 and higher-ed instructors were mixed. Many said the change was dramatic, students and staff were excited, there was much more socialization and all COVID-19 protocols such as social distancing were on the backburner. Some did not notice much difference while others noticed social awkwardness.

It should be noted that this study had limitations with a small number of survey participants and the geographical location of the majority of the respondents within the state of New Mexico. Further research is necessary to expand this study to include teachers from other states in the country and determine the impacts of mask mandates on teaching.

Overall, we found that the mask mandate only had a major adverse impact if the instructor and/or students had a negative perspective about mask-wearing. We had three K-12 teachers working with the hearing-impaired students using American Sign Language [31] where facial expressions are a big part of the language. The majority of them mentioned that their students got used to masks, again attesting to the fact that with a positive perspective mask-wearing can become a new norm. Mask mandates have a direct impact on a decrease in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths [12]. Moreover, several studies reported more COVID-19 cases in areas without K-12 school mask mandates [13,14,15]. A recent study comparing mask optional and mask required school districts suggested a 3.5 times higher COVID transmission rate in mask optional schools [16]. Therefore, we also recommend that putting on a mask during the flu season, and not only for COVID, will help deter the spreading of many airborne diseases. Wearing a mask, whether the communication was hindered or not, slows the spread of COVID-19 and potentially saves lives.