In my career as an educator, I recall how, time after time, year after year, we wanted parents to get involved in the education of their children. We would jump through all kinds of hoops to get parents to conferences, meetings, events, etc.
Boy, how things have changed.
I don’t know when or how it happened, but our local Board of Education has decided that they can’t handle too much input from the community and/or parents. They have limited themselves to a room that, because of “safety” will only allow ten people in the audience. If there are ten people scheduled to speak, then only those ten get in. They could move to a much larger facility, but they don’t want to.
Weird, because this was a day when 80 students were sent home to quarantine based on “contact tracing.” They were sent home from all grade levels and they had nothing but worksheets to tide them over for ten days. See, the virtual learning from the last year and a half has disappeared suddenly, even though the school systems just got 8 million dollars. You’d think they’d be able to arrange virtual learning for all these students so they wouldn’t fall behind.
But, they don’t want that. They WANT what is happening to happen. Want to know why? Well, if they are “forced” to send contact traced kids home from school in large enough numbers, then they will be able to join with the Health Department and lobby for in school Covid testing and…wait for it… vaccination. And, it’s even better if that ten day quarantine allows a kid to fall behind in his/her classes. I can just hear Dr. Griffith. “We have to do something for these kids. We must have access to Covid testing and vaccinations for ALL the kids. It must be MANDATED. Then they won’t have to go home.” She’ll say it in that up talking voice she likes to use. The one that is supposed to convince us that kids are the number one priority. As if.
Thing is, the quarantine decision is not being applied evenly or sensibly. Some kids are being selected out of classes of 20 because they may have been exposed to another kid who was Covid positive. The Covid positive kid and the exposed children go home for ten days. The Covid positive kid’s siblings and the exposed children’s siblings don’t. Make sense to you? By the way, they are all wearing masks. I guess they don’t work.
Then there are the teachers. A vaccinated teacher who tested positive for Covid was not sent home to quarantine. Not at all. Why is that? Is this about protecting the “vaccinated” like Biden said? Or was a deal struck with the union?
And, in case you thought this was all on the up and up, we now have Covid contact “snitches” who report kids who might have been exposed to Covid positive students, even if they weren’t. What can go wrong here? It’s not like someone wouldn’t do that on purpose to a kid, would they? A ticked off teacher? A classmate who doesn’t like the kid? A rival for a certain love interest?
The kid of a parent who complains too much to administrators about masking? That would never happen.
Again, the point is not health, the point is money and the government continuing to take away the rights of parents and children. And the schools are doing one helluva job.
The schools are well insulated from any negative publicity or pushback. For example, we had a bunch of people who wanted to speak out against mandates at the Board Meeting tonight. But guess what? When we tried to sign up a few weeks ago, we were told there were already TEN, yes TEN speakers signed up and the little room they use for meetings was FULL. The suggestion to move to a bigger facility was knocked down with this logic, ” We can’t move to a bigger room for SAFETY’s sake. ” Whose safety? Certainly a large cafeteria or auditorium would be just as safe or safer than a little tiny room. But maybe they mean safety from mean people saying things they don’t like. So, we could only stand outside the building.
Now, we don’t know who actually signed up first. We have no way of knowing because the order of emails is determined by the Board. But it did seem strange that ALL TEN SPEAKERS that made the cut were falling all over themselves to THANK Dr. Griffith and her wonderful Board for mandating masks and making the world a safer place for all. More impressive than the Red Guard thanking Mao. I’m pretty sure it took Mao quite a few purges to get to 100 % gratitude and adoration. Did the Board President glow with joy behind her mask that protected all from her because she’s been vaccinated?
We knew it was going to be that way when we saw the designated speakers walking in. After all, they had their masks on while IN THE CAR by themselves and also OUTSIDE. We dirty, lousy anti-mandate folks were outside maskless. Barbarians. When will they be able to take us away in the boxcars? Not soon enough for the great and all powerful Board of Education.
There are some things to be thankful for, though. Parents did find out today that the kids could take off their masks when doing hard exertion during phys ed class. It was so nice that the government gave them that little crumb of human rights.
But wait, that might be a trap. If they breathe hard without masks, more may have to go home and quarantine. Stop the madness!
So, Board of Education, you won that skirmish. But guess what? It’s not over.
We aren’t going away for a very long time.
Side note: If you think the private schools are doing any better, they are not. They just keep following public school stupidity. Just insert the names of private schools where needed.
Additional info: Superintendent Griffith was not at the meeting in person last night but appeared on a Power Point. I sincerely hope she and her family are okay.
