Partisan politics are inflamed, especially as school board meetings have been met with these attitudes. In the past year, these have become flooded with parents fighting for their children’s rights pertaining to various political issues, including COVID-19 protocols and masks.
Recently, the Elizabethtown Area School District meetings have garnered much participation from parents who hope to enact change and share their approval or dismay to school board members.
Chaplain and Director of Religious Life Rev. Amy Shorner-Johnson is one of these parents; she is an advocate for masking in schools.
She expressed the growing popularity of attending school board meetings, stating, “Four weeks ago, there were a ton of parents who came to the meeting. The meeting lasted like four hours.”
Shorner-Johnson saw the importance of attending and voicing her opinion since she is the mother of two elementary-aged children that are currently unable to receive the vaccine. Due to this, she wants to see extended mask mandates. She observed, “Everybody [masked] last year, and the school board was able to… name that one of the reasons they were able to both communicate with people and parents but also keep cases so low was because transmission in school was very small because everyone was wearing masks.”
In addition, financial barriers may be avoided if masks remain in place. For example, schools have experienced difficulty finding substitute teachers–both due to shortages and the lack of funds. The continuation of this mandate in schools will protect teachers, allowing them to remain in the classroom.
Similarly, Shorner-Johnson discussed another financial burden on some individuals: the need to get a COVID-19 test. She said, “[Workers] lose hourly employment, and there’s a chance that they could lose their jobs [if they contract the disease or have to quarantine].”
This situation also affects parents. If their child is a close contact, they must miss work in order to cater to the school’s protocols by obtaining a negative test result, and if not, they have to find child care-which has been difficult during the pandemic.
On the other hand, although masks may prevent the spread of COVID-19, they are a detriment to child development, as emphasized by Shorner-Johnson, who mentioned, “[They] create depressive issues, in that people can’t connect in the same way.”
It is important that children are exposed to facial expressions, as this is how they will learn social cues and appropriate ways to react. However, Governor Tom Wolf recently announced that he does not plan to reverse the mask mandate this month, stating, “The key is not so much the date. It’s when the vaccine becomes available to all school children and how fast we can get them vaccinated.”
The issue is that the vaccine is only recommended for individuals 12 and older, meaning that masks are likely to remain in effect for public school children.
In addition, each county’s statistics influence masking guidelines. Lancaster County has had 537 positive cases in the past two weeks, with over 85 percent of tests being negative, according to their COVID-19 information hub. There have been 69,535 cases in total. It remains a high-risk county, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
With this information in mind, Shorner-Johnson commented, “The anxiety is not going to go away, with or without masks.” Her statement highlights that the fight for and against masking will persist in and out of schools.
