What Gavin Newsom's March 12 deadline means for CA Families with K-12 school-aged children
The following post is a guest post by Tiffany Craft, a plaintiff of The Gavel Project. See her Substack to see her ongoing efforts in favor of mask choice in Irvine Unified School District.
Welcome news came on the February 28 that the California Department of Public Health (CADPH) and Gavin Newsom have off ramps for the school mask mandates, which will utilize CDC Guidelines updated on February 25, using the rate of COVID-19 community spread as an indicator for whether masks should be required in a school setting. In essence, some amount of control is being given back to the hands of the local jurisdictions for them to determine what’s best for their local communities.
Although some control is reverting to the local level, Newsom and Dr. Mark Ghaly, Newsom’s Secretary of the California Health & Human Services Agency, made it clear that we are not out of the woods yet and that control could be diverted back to CDPH to reinstate mandates at any point in time. Furthermore, the decisions to be made on school masking requirements are now at the discretion of School Boards and District Leadership and based on guidance from County Health Officials. However, it is not a given that all Districts in the state will pivot to mask choice for students.
This does mean that those School Boards and District Leadership who do not pivot to mask choice can no longer use the excuse that masks are required by law in the school setting. They (Districts) can no longer tell families wishing to peacefully and civilly disobey the mask requirement that noncompliance could be punishable by law in the form of jail time, penalties, fines, etc. This begs the question: what will the Boards continuing with the mask mandates tell families in their District that want mask choice?
Many Districts who have shared intentions of shifting to mask choice (not already on the list of 27 (plus) defying state mandates on reopencaliforniaschools.com) are making it clear they have no plans to do so until 11:59pm Friday, March 11 in accordance with the date and time established by Gavin Newsom. Why March 11 you might ask? Why couldn’t it have been March 1? Why force our school kids to mask in the classroom for another two weeks? The answer is: Politics, of course!
Politics has decided most, if not all, COVID-19 Policy in the state of CA. While Newsom and Ghaly tout their decisions have been based on science and data, the evidence of that being true is weak. Conversely, there is strong evidence indicating politics have played a much larger role than we realize. When Ghaly was asked by a Fox Reporter “why wait until March 11, and did the Teachers Unions have a say in setting the date,” his response was he doesn’t have communication with the Teachers Unions, and he can’t comment on that. He implied that March 11 will allow time for the data to look even better.
His answer to the why March 11 question was not based on science, because the science on what we know about transmissibility of COVID-19 hasn’t changed recently as compared to the political winds. Soon after Ghaly’s briefing, an article was published in the LA Times explaining there was previously an agreement in place with LA teachers’ union requiring masking at least through the end of the current school year. Just when we thought the Teachers Unions had destroyed all their remaining political capital and exhausted their power and influence in keeping schools closed for a prolonged period during the 2020/2021 academic year, they are back at it again.
The same tactics are being utilized as were in play last year. This time around, however, the stakes are higher. What has changed over the past 12-18 months is that parents are awake to, aware of, and enraged by the antics of the Teachers Unions. Parents across the nation do not approve of School Boards bowing to the demands of Teachers Unions, particularly when such demands are neither in the best interest of students nor constitutional.
Board Members for public school districts, upon their swearing in, sign an oath stipulating they will bear “true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of California.” Adhering to their public office oath ought to trump any demands from Teachers Unions who are not bound by a public office oath. An abundance of organized peaceful protests, the encouragement of students to engage in peaceful civil disobedience of the mask mandate, The Peoples Convoy, and strong attendance at Board of Education meetings across the nation are all evidence that parents have had enough. The line, for parents, has already been drawn in the sand.
Although the school mask mandates are not scheduled to be lifted until 11:59pm on March 11, many California parents will not stand for another day of forced masking of school children for the sake of appeasing Teachers Unions. There will be peaceful civil disobedience of the mask requirement by students until the purported “mandate” is lifted. There also may be high rates of absenteeism as parents who have had enough and are getting no support from School Boards/Districts/Administrators pull their kids out of school until Monday, March 14 when discretion allegedly reverts to the District level. It will be interesting to see how the Districts handle the interim.
The volume of parents speaking out publicly in favor of mask choice over mask mandate in the K-12 setting is carrying weight. As a direct result of parent and community member feedback, 27 school districts, 3 individual schools and 1 group of Christian Schools adopted mask choice resolutions and or policies in February, actively defying the state mandate. For these Districts and schools, defying the State mandate has not resulted in any penalties thus far. Students in those districts, that choose to, will be able to remain unmasked without penalty through March 11 just as they have for the past two weeks.