Wichita BOE playing culture war politics with students health!
Yesterday, at 5:19pm, I received the following text message from USD259: “Wichita BOE votes to end WPS mask mandates at the close of business on Thursday, March 10.” This was not unexpected with three new anti-maskers on the school board in 2022, with that said, I’m still mad as hell, as the Wichita Board of Education plays culture war politics with students, teachers, and staff lives.
In the meeting called by the three new members of the board, Diane Albert, Kathy Bond, and Hazel Stabler, who are clear anti-maskers, more on that later, the board voted 4 – 3 in favor of discontinuing the mask requirement for all Wichita school buildings. One parent claims that her child was pulling out teeth and scratching at their eyes and ears because of the stress of wearing a mask. I’m not a doctor, but it sounds like this particular child has some mental health issues that need to be addressed. I sit outside my kids’ school and most kids start walking home or to parents’ cars with their masks on, I don’t see kids ripping their masks off as soon as they are outside of the building, which indicates to me that most kids are perfectly fine with wearing a mask. For the kid suffering from mask stress, there could possibly be a medical exemption to not wear a mask, instead, an option could be to wear a transparent face shield.
It makes my mind boggle why 3 weeks after it was reported that over 1,000 school workers were out of school because of COVID-19, a decision to make masks voluntary would be made, that is likely to make that situation worse after spring break, who knows what kids will bring back to school after the break!
Two weeks ago, the same board voted 4 – 3 in favor of retaining the mask requirement, with the three new members of the BOE voting to remove the requirement. This makes it even more baffling that all of a sudden, masks are no longer needed to protect our children and USD259 staff. In the past few weeks, there have been multiple snow days, in addition to in-service days and national holidays, limiting the time that people were out and about interacting with others, artificially reducing the infection rate.
Returning to my comment about the new board members being anti-maskers. Their swearing-in was delayed as all three of the new members refused to wear a face mask, forcing the board President, Stan Reeser to suspend the meeting, saying “Due to non-compliance, it is my duty to suspend this meeting without calling it to order“, delaying the swearing-in of the newest members of the board. Another board member, Ernestine Krehbiel made a point about young students being able to follow the rules, eluding to grown adults, Albert, Bond, and Stabler acting like petulant children, a sentiment I 100% agree with.
Let’s call this what it is; a manufactured culture war, with the minority being the most vocal, with no regard to the health of the community. If you seriously believe that COVID-19 cases will not spike within a month of students returning to school on March 21, you are delusional. Masks work, but only if everyone is wearing a mask, here’s an easy-to-understand example of how mask wearing protects everyone.
My hope is that the children will have more working brain cells than four of the members of the Wichita Board of Education, and continue to wear masks while on school property. My 12-year-old daughter can understand the benefits of wearing a mask to protect, not only herself but everyone else around her.
The people we should be asking are the students and faculty, the ones at risk while in school buildings, not parents with ideologies based upon the current right-wing grift of anti-mask, anti-vax culture wars.
Final note; how many school children are still unvaccinated in school, increasing the risk of severe cases of COVID-19, despite vaccinations being available to everyone from age 5 upwards? The vaccine has been proven safe, or at least as safe as any vaccine can be, if you’re a parent who likes to call forcing a child to wear a mask child abuse, but not doing everything you can to protect your child from a deadly virus is not considered child abuse, I guess there is no helping you, and God help your child, which he won’t!