WA mask mandate is ending, and so should dysfunction on the Richland School Board

Who would have thought a bit of fabric would cause so much division and turmoil?

For months, many Tri-Citians were bent on finding a way around WA Gov. Jay Inslee’s indoor mask mandate — especially in schools. Their thoughts were on little else, it seemed.

In the Richland School District the issue was so hot it led to protests, an illegal vote to defy the governor’s orders, two missed days of school and an attempt to oust the school board president from her leadership position.

But indoor mask requirements will be lifted as of 11:59 p.m. Friday, March 11, and that means the cause of all the friction is finally going away.

So the concern now is whether people can truly move on from this hurtful time.

Nowhere else was the strain more apparent than with the Richland School Board in recent months.

Newly-elected school board members Audra Byrd and Semi Bird rode in on a wave of dissatisfaction. Parents who wanted the school district to fight harder against the mask mandate ushered them in with the hopes of forcing a change to how the district handled the state order.

Byrd went so far as to encourage students to protest masks. Much of her election campaign was focused on defying Inslee’s mask requirements and she didn’t waver from her mission.

On the opposite side were citizens who were grateful for the caution against a disease that has so far killed 652 people in the Tri-City area, including 446 in Benton County and 206 in Franklin County.

The division on the school board got ugly and launched citizen protests on both sides of the issue, especially after three school board members unsuccessfully tried to make masks optional.

The anger and the frustration festered to the point that an outside leadership consultant told the school board it is at a tipping point.

“I think you’re really at the point where you need to decide are you going to continue, as a team, to ramp up the tension or are you really as a group committed to deciding how to work together, even with different perspectives,” said Tricia Lubach, director of the Washington State School Directors’ Association’s leadership development department.

Lubach was brought in for a special meeting so board members could work on team-building and discuss protocols.

It is crucial that the Richland School Board — along with other Tri-City elected boards and councils — find a way to function without escalating dissent.

While the governor has decided to lift the mask mandate for now, he still has the power to change that decision at any time.

Last summer, Inslee lifted the indoor mask requirement for vaccinated citizens, but reinstated it several weeks later when COVID cases again started to spike, largely because of the rapid surge of the Delta variant.

We would all like to think that the worst is behind us and that we are on our way to getting back a semblance of our pre-COVID days.

But as we’ve seen in the past, situations can change very quickly.

Washington state is considered still in a state of emergency, which is necessary in order to receive federal COVID funding. But unfortunately the Legislature failed this session to rein in the governor’s sole authority over the pandemic and Inslee will still be pulling all the strings.

We need school officials to be prepared to work together as a team so they can manage the challenges ahead — especially figuring out how to make up the widespread learning loss caused by COVID.

It’s a shame masks ended up being such a distraction, but now it’s time to look forward.

Beginning next week, students and teachers will be able to see smiling faces at school for the first time in two years, and it will be wonderful.

Let’s hope those good vibes spread throughout the community, and that Richland School Board members don’t let hard feelings continue to bring the district down.

This story was originally published March 9, 2022 at 12:19 PM.