It takes guts to stand up to a crowd. Richland School Board right to keep mask rules
Contrary to the name calling, four Richland School Board members who resisted pleas to defy school mask mandates are anything but cowards.
They’re the opposite. It takes a great deal of inner strength to sit before a group of frustrated parents and not cave to their pressure.
Fortunately for the school district, there is a majority of cooler heads on the school board who fully grasp the possible consequences if they vote to end mask requirements.
While State Schools Superintendent Chris Reykdal recently announced that he would support eventually making masks optional in Washington state schools, the rules are still in place for now.
And school districts are still at risk of losing state funding if they don’t comply with those rules.
The Herald contacted the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to better understand Reykdal’s position, and was told that schools are still required — by the Governor’s orders — to follow the state Department of Health’s guidance.
DOH officials still say that masks are required to be worn at school, and until state health officials change that guidance, the order must be followed, according to OSPI.
Reykdal called for a decision on masks to be made “in the coming weeks.”
Public health models are predicting cases and hospitalizations to decline significantly over the next few weeks, and if the rates continue as predicted, then state school officials anticipate the statewide mask order would be lifted in March.
Bolstered by Reykdal’s words, the public comment period at this week’s Richland school board meeting became intense.
A stream of parents and school staff members approached the microphone to offer their thoughts on the contentious issue, and the meeting nearly moved into a remote session three times when speakers refused to put on masks themselves.
Newly elected school board member Audra Byrd — who was participating in the meeting online instead of in-person — called for her fellow board members to drop the mask requirement immediately.
Byrd’s motion met with complete silence from the board — and the non-reply spoke volumes.
And that’s when people in the crowd started calling them cowards.
For those who are against masks in schools, Reykdal’s position is encouraging.
But Byrd is getting ahead of herself if she thinks that what Reykdal said gives the school district a way out of the mask requirement right now.
Byrd ran her campaign against masks in schools, and recently encouraged students to participate in anti-mask protests during class time. “It’s our children who are suffering, and the way they’ve been suffering” she said.
But Byrd is serving her base — not the entire district. The only way to get back to normal is to see COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths decline significantly.
Several states across the country — including California and Oregon — have recently announced plans to lift mask mandates.
Gov. Jay Inslee recently said that Washington will lift its outdoor mask mandate on Feb. 18 and that he plans to set a date next week when indoor masks can be lifted.
“We believe this wave has gone up like a rocket. It’s going to come down like a rock,” Inslee said at a Wednesday news conference. “Omicron clearly has characteristics that will allow us to lift mitigation measures with the weeks to come rather than months.”
And Reykdal recently said that the increase in vaccinations is a turning point. He said the downside to wearing masks did not outweigh the benefits at the beginning of the pandemic, but with vaccinations widely available he now supports making masks optional in schools.
But it isn’t going to happen just yet.
In the meantime, school officials should stay the course. In Eastern Washington, cases have not dipped as drastically as other areas. Recently, Franklin County ranked second highest in the country for new COVID infections, and Benton County ranked 10th.
But there also has been an increase in vaccination rates in the Tri-Cities, and that’s great news.
As a community, we must continue to get our vaccine rates up and our COVID cases down. If we join the rest of the state in this effort, we’ll see masks go away.
No amount of protesting will make it happen faster.