The kids are all right, but some SLO County ‘adults’ are freaking out over school mask mandate
Middle school students interviewed Tuesday — the first day of school in Atascadero — were quite OK with wearing face masks.
“It’s alright,” one eighth-grader told a Tribune reporter. “It makes us safe, so I don’t mind.”
Yet some adults — and we sincerely hope it’s a minuscule but vocal minority — are mad as hell that the state of California is requiring all students to wear masks indoors.
Never mind that COVID cases are sharply rising again; there were 603 new cases in San Luis Obispo County over the past week, up from 386 the week prior.
Some speakers at recent school board meetings have seemed far more concerned about state vs. local control than the growing threat of the COVID Delta variant.
“We’re under the thumb of tyranny,” Paso Robles School District trustee Dorian Baker said at a Tuesday night meeting. “And I can’t stand it.”
A P.E. teacher at Daniel E. Lewis Middle School in Paso Robles flat out said she will not enforce the mask mandate.
“I’d rather have a millstone wrapped around my neck and be thrown into the ocean than knowingly go along with a mask mandate,” she told the Paso board.
At an Atascadero school board meeting, a SLO County sheriff’s deputy issued a not-so-veiled threat about what would happen if the school district “segregated” children who aren’t wearing masks from students who are masked. (Something not even allowed under the current state requirement).
“If you decide to segregate those kids (from those who do wear masks), it will be considered ... retaliation, and, well, use your imagination of what will happen next,” said Deputy Jake Loden. “Don’t forget, Rosa Parks was told to sit in the back of the bus. She simply said ‘No.’ So ladies and gentlemen, that’s how it’s done. Not telling our kids to sit in the back of the bus. We will not comply.”
Just to be clear, no one is discriminating against children by requiring them to wear masks. They are trying to keep them safe. And since when is it OK for a law enforcement officer to threaten a school board?
Requiring masks in school during a global pandemic isn’t “tyranny,” any more than requiring childhood vaccinations is tyranny.
Or does the Paso Robles school board want to do away with that requirement as well?
Look, as we’ve said before, nobody wants kids to have to wear masks, but it’s for their protection at a time when a deadly pandemic is once again surging.
The number of California children and adolescents who tested positive for COVID nearly tripled in the second half of July, compared to the first half, the Sacramento Bee recently reported.
The number of children hospitalized for COVID also is on the rise; it averaged 216 per day between July 31 and Aug. 6, according to the New York Times.
It’s true that the vast majority of children who are infected quickly recover.
But it’s also true that there is still much we don’t know about COVID. For instance, NPR has reported that scientists are now studying whether cognitive problems experienced by some patients cause changes in the brain that could be linked to greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
In other words, this is a nasty disease best avoided by people of all ages.
Thankfully, local school districts are standing firm and agreeing to go along with the state mask mandate, though if the Paso Robles P.E. teacher is any indication, it remains to be seen whether the requirement will be uniformly enforced.
Nor does it seem that the Paso Robles school board is taking this all that seriously.
It begrudgingly included the mask mandate in its reopening plan and, lest anyone mistake its intentions, also passed a “Let Them Breathe” resolution. It supports dropping the statewide mask mandate and letting school districts discuss COVID-19 safety measures with their local public health departments.
Looks like it’s up to the “thumb of tyranny” — not some of our own school leaders — to protect children from COVID-19.
This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM.