‘We need your help’: Wichita-area students ask others to wear masks

A video published Friday on the Andover Public Schools’ YouTube channel shows Wichita-area students urging others to wear a mask.

The video — titled “Wichita-area students need your help!” — features more than 16 children and teens, usually wearing school apparel and always a mask, asking people to follow guidelines that state and local health officials have been encouraging since the start of the pandemic: wearing a mask in public, social distancing, washing hands, avoiding gatherings and staying home if sick.

“These things are easy,” a teenage girl says.

A young girl in a Valley Center Hornets hooded sweatshirt adds: “And they are so important.”

“If you do them, we can be in our classrooms sooner,” a teenage boy in a Wichita public schools T-shirt says.

A teen in a Goddard Lions T-shirt and mask says: “We can learn in person with our teachers and our friends.”

That’s followed by a young girl in a Stone Creek Elementary in Derby T-shirt saying: “We can have a great school year” before she raises her arms with pom-poms.

The 81-second video ends with logos for Andover, Maize, Valley Center, Goddard, Derby, Haysville and Wichita school districts.

Andover does not have a mask mandate, according to a city official. The Andover school district draws students from Butler and Sedgwick counties. Sedgwick County has a mask mandate but the Butler County Commission opted out of Gov. Laura Kelly’s mask mandate last week, citing lower COVID-19 rates than Harvey, Reno and Sedgwick counties.

Masks are considered one of the easiest ways to slow the spread of COVID-19, which spreads “mainly from person to person through respiratory droplets” when people cough, sneeze or talk, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.