We don't care about your YouTube-based research. We don't care about your chiropractors and dentists and faith healers and assorted quasi-medical quack holistic healing-essential oils-ivermectin-betadine-hydrochloroquine disinformation. We don't give a shit about your accusations that children are being "muzzled" or that Pete Harding is "media" or that Steve Mannion has any business in Clarence whatsoever.
(By the way - and you know who you are - we saw you chatting Mannion up after the SRO kicked you all out Monday. Must've been a nice chat because it sure didn't seem as if you told him to go home. Interesting.)
But muh "parental choice," say you. Well, we prefer to behave as responsible adults. Just like with seat belts in the 80s, we believe that masking and vaxxing isn't an issue of "personal choice" but public health.
Let's break it down - the state says schools have to have kids masked. The Clarence CSD runs several schools. Kids in those schools have to wear masks lest they be subject to discipline. If two kids are in close quarters and both are wearing a mask of some sort, the likelihood of one of them transmitting a virus to the other drops exponentially. That's it.
Even if you are too stubborn to believe that bit of science, then think of a mask as something that the school requires - just like kids aren't supposed to fight or vape or do drugs or drink on campus or dress in a way that is violative of the dress code, lest they be subject to discipline.
Let's say you're right - that wearing a mask does nothing for your particular kid. What it does, however, is it helps to protect the most vulnerable people in the school.
Just like when you're not supposed to bring nuts to a class where a kid has a nut allergy. If you did that, you'd be an asshole and you'd be teaching your kid that it's ok to be an asshole.
Again: teaching your kids it's ok to violate rules that exist to help the most vulnerable people in the school is you teaching your kid it's ok to be an unempathetic, selfish asshole.
So, sure, go ahead and submit all the petitions you want. Flood the BOE meetings with angry mobs from in and out of town to flout and denounce a mask mandate that you know full well the BOE has absolutely zero authority to overrule. Show your neighbors, friends, and colleagues that you literally could not care less about the people in the school who are most at risk. (Maybe, just to really underscore the point, tell them to f off out of the district and go to the online BOCES course).
To be honest, it all seems a lot more like my student first, rather than students first. You'd think that by now the most prominent local group advocating against masking would have the self-awareness (if not common decency) to reject and denounce the outside provocation and agitation from insurrectionist scum Pete Harding and Christian nationalist Steven Mannion. Alas, no such luck. Can you not submit your "screw the susceptible kids" petition yourselves? You need the guy who lit stuff on fire at the Capitol to help you? Maybe you all appreciate the assist. Maybe it was an invitation. (Remember the tete-a-tete, mentioned above.)
Congratulations. Bring in outside anti-mask provocateurs who refuse to abide a simple requirement, and you get this:
No agenda items except those in the Call to Order were completed: the Pledge of Allegiance, roll call and some announcements. Items left on the table included but were not limited to three field trip requests; information about fall events; a report on Clarence Center Elementary; a report on physical education, health and athletics; finance and personnel items; and correspondence, which included one email petitioning for “parental mask choice” and eight emails supporting mask requirements and/or commenting on conduct at the Aug. 30 board meeting.
You think these antics make you look good? You think inviting these outside people is a good idea or strategy? You think "civil disobedience" means not wearing a mask in a HS library *when there are literally students on site* is ok? How about Pete Harding roaming the darkened halls of the High School building and live-streaming it like some prospective shooter casing the place, that make you feel all warm and fuzzy?
We honestly long for the days when all we had to worry about was math-inhibited vandals who wanted to defund the schools. As wrong as they were, at least they weren't out to infect people with a virus. (Oh, and to the extent that "parent choice" on masking is something you think is a good idea, see the link in comments.)
Enough.
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