Torches and pitchforks again? Not so much.
A group of Wayland Union school district parents appeared again at a Board of Education meeting Monday night to urge a policy removing Covid-19 restrictions when the academic year begins in late August. A smaller group this time, it did include a couple of children of the like-minded parents.
Supt. Dr. Christina Hinds essentially informed everybody present that school officials and board members have every intention of reopening school in August sans masks, distancing and for five days a week in the classroom.
“I am looking forward to five days a week and masks optional, and shifting the responsibility of contract tracing to the health department,” she said. She added that, “Separation of students based on vaccinations has never been on our radar.”
The superintendent said things could change by late August if a new viral threat rears it ugly head or if higher officials order a return to the much despised hybrid model of instruction, mask wearing and social distancing.
The meeting was held in the high school media center because the City Council had its regular session at the Fine Arts Center in the same building.
Though the temperature was turned down a bit, the parents and two children made it clear they won’t put up with an academic year like 2020-21 again.
One, Anthony Gutierrez, was particularly adamant, calling the viral pandemic, “a big landslide of misinformation,” insisting that 99 percent of the population has survived Covid.
“This is nothing more than the flu on steroids,” he contended. “I cannot go through another year with masks. We cannot abuse these children any more.”
Bret Butler, who has expressed his opinions at several meetings already this year, said he wanted to know what the intentions of the board are and he wanted its position on Critical Race Theory, which he called, “just a theory.”
CRT is the recent position that history too often has ignored certain historical important developments involving black people and Native Americans and calls for more inclusion of events such as Wounded Knee, the Tulsa Massacre and the Trail of Tears.
Butler asked the board about “what your mission is and where you’re headed.”
One woman insisted that parents should have the option of not vaccinating their children because they believe it hasn’t yet proven to be safe.
Dr. Hinds gave an audio-visual presentation attempting to explain how the board arrives at making decisions on controversial issues.