Addressing the Local School Board Regarding Mask Policy

This was the address I planned on delivering at a local school board meeting as they deliberated a mask-optional policy in our town. They ended up postponing the meeting until after the state Board of Education voted on the issue. As BESE voted in favor of a statewide mask mandate, I did not feel the need to attend the local meeting, as I knew it would be mostly upset parents wanting the town to defy the state order (which the town board did not do.)

Again, I wanted to share this anyway so that other pro-mask parents know they are not the only ones with this opinion.

I’m tired. I’m tired of feeling anxious all the time. I’m tired of politics. I’m tired of wearing a mask.

But even though it is uncomfortable and inconvenient, I wear one anyway because my oldest daughter is not yet eligible for a vaccine. She is only four, so it may be a long wait before she can get one — longer still for my 9-month-old baby.

I watched the video from your meeting a week ago. I noticed you took great care in gathering data regarding local vaccination and infection rates. You even extended the courtesy of allowing students, teachers, and parents like myself to weigh in on the mask issue by completing a survey. Thank you for allowing our voices to be heard.

At the start of last week’s meeting you shared those survey results with the public, and I appreciate this transparency. There is some drill-down on the data collected that I would still like to see, however. I would like to see the breakdown of responses to questions regarding masks by school affiliation. I am curious to see if a higher percentage of parents and teachers support masking in the lower grade levels — the grades that comprise students too young for a vaccine, because that is my primary concern, and a concern I know many other parents of young children share.

Throughout the conversation last week, there was no mention as to whether or not there should be a different set of rules based on vaccine eligibility. There was, however, a lot of emphasis on choice. But not all of us have the full range of choices available to us yet.

I understand the desire for choice in the age groups where students and families have the ability to get a vaccine or not, and that they should also have the choice to wear a mask or not. But kids under 12 are still relying solely on the protection that community masking affords them. They are young, impressionable, vulnerable, and need us to look out for their interests.

Last week, many of you expressed the joy and relief of being able to travel, attend events, and visit family and friends without wearing a mask. I’m glad you are able to enjoy these freedoms. I know it has been a long and stressful year for all of us, and these opportunities are valuable and an essential part of healing and moving forward — but some of our community members still can’t enjoy life as it was before the pandemic just yet. I ask that you please consider them in your decision.

Some of you are concerned about going back to having restrictions after the summer — the restriction of wearing a mask all day — but some of us see masks not as confining, but freeing. Masks gave me the freedom to deliver my baby safely this past fall, without the fear that I or my newborn would get sick. Masks made it possible for my older and medically vulnerable mother to hold her three-day-old granddaughter. Masks gave my older daughter the freedom to play with friends and visit family instead of suffering in isolation. Masks will also give her the freedom to begin her education safely.

Instead of an all-or-nothing masking policy, I propose a compromise: optional masks in classrooms and schools where students are old enough to be vaccinated. Mandated, universal masking in classrooms where students are still too young to be protected through vaccination. This should balance some families’ desire for choice with other families’ desire for continued protection, while also satisfying the Department of Elementary & Secondary Education’s recommendation that the unvaccinated wear masks in indoor settings.

In last week’s meeting you recognized that parents are scared. That is true. I am scared. I’m scared that if I defer my daughter’s education another year that she will fall behind in her social development and become sad and anxious without friends and the engagement that school provides. I’m scared that sending her to preschool puts her health — and her baby sister’s health — at risk. I’m scared that if she contracts the virus and passes it to my mother that my daughters could lose a grandparent. I’m afraid that if I send her to class in a mask, that she will be singled out, made fun of, and have difficulty making friends if her peers are not masked as well.

I’m scared that because so many of us have been fully vaccinated and begun to move forward with our lives that we are forgetting that a large percentage of the population are still at risk. I’m scared that in an effort to protect students’ freedom to make their own choices, that we abandon our duty to protect the kids who are still too young to have a choice.

Please don’t leave these children behind. Help me and other parents continue to protect our young children so that they can resume school safely. Thank you.