Lost trust in Somers-Lakeside school board
How dare you tell the parents of your district that their children will not be required to wear masks at school, only to go behind their backs and impose such a mandate and in such a way that they must find out from social media at 10 p.m.?
How dare you? One can debate the health impacts of forcing children to wear filthy cloths over their faces all day long, every day. One can debate the psychological trauma children are being subjected to. One can debate whether or not such masks have a positive or negative impact on a child’s enthusiasm and capacity for learning. But how dare you make such a decision in a clandestine meeting purposefully designed to exclude the input of parents?
How dare you go behind the backs of parents to impose a mandate you knew would be opposed by a large majority of them? How dare you?
One can wonder if such a decision is based on the scientifically proven efficacy of masking children at school to prevent the transmission of a disease which is spread through multiple vectors and in all sectors of society, including those where mask-wearing is not required of anyone, let alone 5-year-old children. One can wonder if such decisions are based on hard data or if they are based on the desire of a few board members to virtue-signal or insert themselves into a political debate or if some of them are just indulging a (sometimes) unconscious desire to impose their will on others. We can debate what impact the policy will have on the number of Covid cases in the Flathead Valley.
What we cannot debate is the vile, underhanded way in which this decision was made.
How dare you? You know full well that if you had dutifully informed parents that a mask mandate for their children was to be voted on by the board on this day and at this time, the response would have been overwhelming, and not in favor of the decision the board already knew it was going to make. That is why it was done in such an underhanded manner.
How dare you? One can wonder why we should mask our children all day long at school only to drop them off at maskless soccer practice or playdates or family functions or the shopping mall or busy restaurants or the hundreds of other activities children do and have been doing every single day in a completely maskless environment.
But what I truly wonder now is, how can I trust the school board of Somers-Lakeside District 29 and how can I trust Superintendent Joe Price? I cannot and I know I’m not the only one.
How dare you?
— James and Talyssa Hatton, Somers