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Kimberly Reicks told the story of the struggles her daughter, Olivia, has experienced at school in the Ankeny District.

Olivia, a 6-year-old, is “mask-injured” and now segregated at her school. Kimberly said the school is attempting to put Olivia behind plexiglass.

“My daughter has been bullied because she cannot medically wear a mask,” she said. “She has a medical exemption not to wear a mask because the mask itself has caused her face to have a rash that turned into Impetigo.”

Kimberly then showed a photo of where Olivia’s desk is compared to the rest of her class.

“I’m not asking you guys to risk your life,” she said to the pro-mask mandate crowd. “I’m not telling you guys you have to take off your mask, I’m saying at least let it be the parents’ choice if we put masks on our children or not. That’s all we’re asking.”

Olivia told The Iowa Standard about her experiences at school this year.

She said it’s a bad day at school because “they won’t let me sit by my friends.”

“Now everybody is sitting at their own desk and I have to sit at my own desk,” she said.

She said she goes home with a paper and sometimes it is bad because she doesn’t want to wear a mask. She gets in trouble at school for not wearing the mask but her mom doesn’t get mad.

Her rash, which is caused by wearing a mask, doesn’t hurt, but it does itch.

And because she cannot wear a mask, she is not allowed to sit by her friends.

“When I was trying to sit at the carpet, I couldn’t,” she said. “I have to sit in my chair with plexiglass.

“When I went home, now I have to be in the back of the line every single time and they won’t let me go up front. So I’m trying to get a coupon so I can get to the front of the line. But they say no, they put me in the back of the line, I’ll just tell my mom and that’s when she knew the face shield and desk shield was all around me.”

You can listen to Olivia at the video below:

“Little girls like my daughter who have no choice, who have to go to school, should at least have a choice to wear a mask or not,” Kimberly said. “She should not suffer every day because somebody else is scared of a pandemic with a 99 percent survival rate.”

Author: Jacob Hall

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