Parents fight COVID mask rules as SLO County schools plan for fall
.jpg "Parents from Moms for Liberty attended the Atascadero school board meeting on Thursday to ask the district not to enforce California’s mask mandate.")
As San Luis Obispo County schools are preparing for a new school year, some community members are demanding that districts buck the state’s mask mandate because they claim it is unconstitutional.
That was the message in Atascadero on Thursday when a group of parents showed up to the school board meeting and threatened to sue individuals in the district if it mandates masks on campus.
The group, Moms for Liberty, is taking an aggressive approach against the state’s mask mandate with back-to-school only a few weeks away in San Luis Obispo County. Last week, dozens of their members gathered to protest outside the Public Health Department in San Luis Obispo as the group ramps up its campaign.
“Our children’s well-being is of our utmost concern,” said Jenny Grinager, the organization’s San Luis Obispo chapter chair. “You’re proposing causing other illnesses in children, causing lifetime mental health issues in children” from requiring them to wear masks.
Grinager said she’s working on building an alternative, in-person education opportunity for students who do not want to wear masks in schools. Teachers and churches have volunteered their time to help, and they have “funding sources coming in,” she said.
The group isn’t alone in fighting the state’s mask mandate in California schools. On Thursday, two like-minded groups, Let Them Breathe and Reopen California Schools, filed a lawsuit in San Diego County Superior Court over the requirement, the Sacramento Bee reported.
The demands have placed local school districts in a difficult position, pinning them between state regulations and a vocal group of angry parents.
What the state mask rules say
Under current policy, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) is requiring all students to wear masks at all times while indoors to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Also, all adults in schools are required to wear a mask when sharing indoor spaces with students, according to the CDPH’s guidance.
The requirement applies to all schools — public and private. Should they not comply, certain state funding may be at risk, according to school district administrators.
San Luis Obispo County Public Health Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein said that the state’s requirement for universal masking makes sense because virtually all elementary-aged students would not be vaccinated as most are under the age of 12, the current limit on how young an individual can be to be vaccinated.
“Protection of the unvaccinated students is important,” she said.
Additionally, Borenstein said that if all students are wearing masks, that creates a level playing field for all and avoids any potential for bullying based on whether an individual is wearing a mask.
The state lists similar concerns in justifying the policy, but it will evaluate whether COVID-19 spread merits a change in the fall.
“CDPH will continue to assess conditions on an ongoing basis, and will determine no later than Nov. 1, 2021, whether to update mask requirements or recommendations,” the department’s website says.
Of particular concern both locally and statewide is the rapid spread of the Delta variant.
On Tuesday, the San Luis Obispo County Public Health Department announced that the number of COVID-19 Delta variant cases nearly tripled from the previous week, rising from five reported cases to 14. That number may be “considerably higher,” the department said, because the state only sequences some cases for the variant.
What SLO County school districts are doing
Local school districts told The Tribune that they will enforce the mask requirements.
“We expect to open our schools where, at this point, our expectation will be that by following that (CDPH) guidance, we will have everyone wearing masks while inside,” San Luis Coastal Unified School District Superintendent Eric Prater said. “So inside the classroom, inside the hallways, bathrooms, we will expect adults and students to wear their masks at all times.”
In the South County, Lucia Mar Unified School District Superintendent Paul Fawcett told The Tribune his district will also enforce the state’s guidelines.
“We are prepared to implement any state and local mandates required of us,” he said.
Atascadero Superintendent Tom Butler said during Thursday’s meeting that the school district will do the same. Should students come to school without a mask on, the school will supply the student with a mask to wear, he said during the meeting.
The same is true for San Miguel Joint Union School District, according to Superintendent Karen Grandoli. She also indicated that, in the fall, the district had no issues enforcing the mask mandate that was in place at that time.
“We haven’t had any issues with students not being compliant with mask wearing, our kids have been super successful wearing their masks,” Grandoli said. “We haven’t had really any discipline situations with that. We haven’t had to ask, except our youngest students, occasionally just reminding them, ‘Hey, pull your mask up.’ But I just don’t see that as being a big deal at this point.”
The Tribune reached out to Paso Robles Joint Unified School District for comment regarding whether the district will enforce the state’s mask mandate. Superintendent Curt Dubost wrote in an emailed response on July 15 that “We are still awaiting final, definitive guidance, direction, and/or mandates from the state.”
School districts face backlash over masks
The issue of whether masks should be required in schools has become a divisive one.
Opponents say requiring all students to wear masks is “unconstitutional” and unnecessary because young kids are much less likely to experience severe symptoms of COVID-19.
Supporters say masks are critical to help curb the spread of a pandemic that is not over, while protecting kids, many of whom are too young to be vaccinated.
From a public health perspective, Borenstein said health and safety measures like mask requirements and physical distancing are key reasons why COVID-19 transmission rates remained low in San Luis Obispo County schools last year.
Over the last school year, 260 school employees and 514 students — 774 in total — had reportedly tested positive for COVID-19 across all San Luis Obispo County public school districts, charter schools and private schools that sent data to The Tribune.
Nevertheless, at the Atascadero meeting, several members of Moms for Liberty, which has about 950 members in the county and is growing daily, called on the district to ignore the state’s mask mandate.
“We’re asking for our freedom,” said Staci Emmack, the secretary for the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, during public comment at the Atascadero school board meeting. “You’re being told you have to mandate something from, I don’t know, your chain of command, and it’s not constitutional.”
“Here’s the thing: Kids have the right for an equal opportunity to education without interference and harassment,” Emmack continued. “Just having to wear a mask, you guys know, I know, we all know, that this is B.S.”
Emmack also said it “took me one day to find 12 people to go to court over this. We will sue you.”
“We are not guaranteed safety in this life, but we are guaranteed freedom. We expect to have that freedom, and we will fight for it,” Emmack finished her comment with.
Roughly a dozen other parents joined Emmack in expressing their displeasure at the school district’s intention to enforce the state’s mask mandate.
Primarily, parents said they wanted freedom of choice on whether to have their kid wear a mask. The state’s mandate, they said, overstepped that freedom.
“If you are afraid, wear the mask,” said Katy Pollington during the Atascadero school board meeting public comment period. “I’m fine with masks in school. I’m not OK with mandating them.”
Although board members can’t respond to public comments during the meeting, Superintendent Butler said he was grateful for the input from the parents.
Butler said the board members will soon hear a draft resolution that would express the board’s desire for more local control when it comes to certain COVID-19 health and safety requirements — such as masking.
“A resolution would be us making a statement publicly, and then communicating that statement, should the board approve it, to a group of elected officials who we think have influence,” Butler said. “We want to be responsible about that resolution, acknowledging that we’re the educational experts not the health experts. But we can put a resolution together where we ask to be able to work with our county (Public Health Department) around safely opening schools based on, if you will, health metrics in San Luis Obispo County.”
That resolution may come forward at the school board’s next meeting on Aug. 3.
How will school look in the fall?
Aside from the mask mandate, schools will look much like they did in pre-pandemic times when students return to classrooms next month.
For one, schools will be able to fill classrooms to normal capacity.
That’s because the mask mandate will eliminate the need for physical distancing, so there will be no requirement to implement a hybrid or split-day schedule to space kids out.
School districts also must offer independent study as a remote option for students who do not want to return to in-person class. Although some districts in San Luis Obispo County have offered this option for years before the COVID-19 pandemic began, it has never been required by the state.
Additionally, school districts are able to fully bring back busing services.
“At this point, we plan to bring our bus routes back,” San Miguel Superintendent Grandoli said. “We do have some challenges with busing — mostly to do with losing a couple of bus drivers. And the positions have been hard to fill but we’re doing our best to get most of our kids back on best route.”
Grandoli’s concern about her district’s lack of bus drivers is a concern felt widely across San Luis Obispo County. Most districts are actively hiring new bus drivers and say they’re eager for candidates to apply.
Schools are mostly maintaining the level of sanitation that they had in the previous school year, concentrating mostly on keeping “high traffic areas” like doorknobs, desks, bathrooms and anything touched by a lot of students, as clean as possible.
School district administrators overall expressed confidence that this next school year will be successful and healthy.
“We are ready to get kids back into school full time, safely,” Grandoli said. “And if that means wearing masks a little bit longer and continuing to try to encourage people to get their vaccinations, those that are old enough to do so, I think we can do it.”
This story was originally published July 23, 2021 at 1:43 PM.
