Atlanta (tca\/dpa) – Carlee Simon, the superintendent of Alachua County Public Schools in Florida, looked forward to welcoming students to the new school year \u2014 one in which they would not be required to wear masks and could, at last, see one another\u2019s faces again.<\/p>\n
But as the hyper-transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus coursed through her district in the north-central part of the state this summer, she began to see a spike in cases and hospitalizations. On July 31, a high school custodian died of Covid-19. Two days later, a custodian at a different high school also died from the respiratory illness.<\/p>\n
In the last two weeks, 55 students and 50 teachers in the district of nearly 30,000 students have tested positive for the virus, more than in the previous five months combined. More than 530 students were quarantined. On Monday, the day before children went back to school, 10 children in Alachua were in hospitals with Covid-19, some in intensive care.<\/p>\n
For Simon and the Alachua school board, the decision early this month to require students and staff to wear masks was easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a very strong constitutional mandate to provide a safe and secure public education to all students,\u201d Simon said in an interview. \u201cUniversal masking is the most effective strategy that we have, besides vaccination.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simon is among school officials who have taken on the role of guardians of public health, insisting that children wear masks in schools. Those officials tend to be in line with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which issued new guidance recently recommending that all children wear masks indoors in schools, regardless of vaccination status.<\/p>\n
More than 30 states have left the decision up to school districts. At least 10 states, including California, plus the District of Columbia, require all students and teachers to wear masks in public schools.<\/p>\n
But eight mostly Republican-controlled states \u2014 Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Florida, South Carolina, Texas and Utah \u2014 have enacted laws or issued executive orders prohibiting school districts from requiring students to wear masks.<\/p>\n
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has banned mask mandates and is threatening to withhold the salaries of district superintendents and board members who require masks.<\/p>\n
DeSantis, a Republican, stated in his executive order that requiring students to wear masks \u201clacks a well-grounded scientific justification\u201d and that children are at a \u201clow risk of contracting a serious illness\u201d due to Covid-19 and do not play a significant role in spreading the virus.<\/p>\n
That message is out of date, said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children\u2019s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development.<\/p>\n
\u201cDelta is behaving in a different way, with higher transmissibility among kids and adolescents,\u201d he said, noting that barely a week after schools opened in Mississippi, a string of elementary and high schools closed due to Covid-19 outbreaks and reverted to virtual learning.<\/p>\n
Throughout much of the pandemic, children have been at low risk of death or severe side effects from Covid-19. According to the CDC, 354 Americans age 17 and younger have died from Covid-19 \u2014 less than half of the 859 children who died from pneumonia and just a fraction of the 52,000 overall childhood deaths. But over the last month, the Delta variant has overwhelmed hospitals with a wave of pediatric cases, particularly in conservative states with low vaccination rates.<\/p>\n
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, almost 94,000 cases were added the week before August 5. Child hospitalizations in the US have reached their highest point during the pandemic, the CDC reported, with 239 patients 17 and under admitted to hospitals August 3-9, a nearly 30-per-cent increase compared to the previous week.<\/p>\n
The American Academy of Pediatrics recently urged the US Food and Drug Administration to authorize Covid-19 vaccines for children under 12 as the Delta variant \u201ccreated a new and pressing risk to children and adolescents across this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
But differences of opinion have led to aggressive confrontations at some school board meetings.<\/p>\n
In Asheville, North Carolina, a few dozen parents opposing Buncombe County Board of Education\u2019s mask mandate forced the board on August 5 to call a recess, then \u201coverthrew\u201d the board and declared themselves the new leaders of the county\u2019s public education system.<\/p>\n
In Franklin, Tennessee, a crowd of angry parents shouted, \u201cWe will not comply!\u201d at a board meeting on Tuesday and threatened public health officials who supported mask mandates.<\/p>\n
Britt Maxwell, 43, a parent and internist who treats Covid-19 patients in Nashville, was left shaken after attending the board of education meeting in Franklin and finding that those who supported wearing masks were outnumbered about 10 to one by a raucous crowd of anti-maskers.<\/p>\n
Maxwell said a mask mandate in Williamson County elementary schools was a no-brainer with Delta surging. His two children, ages 7 and 11, are not vaccinated. \u201cThe facts are clear,\u201d Maxwell said in an interview. \u201cThis isn\u2019t hypothetical. Children are getting sick, now more than ever, and hospitals all across the south … are being stretched to the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n
He and other health care workers were booed by a crowd that chanted, \u201cNo more masks,\u201d and carried signs reading, \u201cYour fear does not take away my freedom\u201d and \u201cLet kids be kids. No mask mandates.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Maxwell and his wife left the meeting, a woman called him a traitor.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy colleagues came with facts and statistics; nobody wanted to hear that,\u201d he said. \u201cThey treated us like the enemy and that couldn\u2019t be further from the truth. We were there for the same reason as them \u2014 we want to protect the children, including their children.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Texas, a growing number of local officials require masks at public schools, defying Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who last month issued an executive order banning mask mandates and last week appealed for out-of-state medical help as hospitalizations soared. Some parents have cheered them on; others are furious.<\/p>\n
\u201cSchool districts don\u2019t get to mandate medical choices for my children,\u201d said Bonnie Anderson, a parent whose children are enrolled in the Katy school district in the Houston suburbs.<\/p>\n
Anderson, 43, who was among a group of parents that filed a lawsuit this year to fight mask mandates, said that if the school district requires masks this year, her 15-year-old son will still attend in person, but she will keep her 8-year-old twins home. She said she believed forcing children to wear masks all day was mainly symbolic, unhygienic, wouldn\u2019t do much to prevent the virus\u2019 spread and bred unnecessary fear.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just wish it could be optional,\u201d said Anderson, who works in cybersecurity. \u201cI\u2019m all about freedom of choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last week, officials in the counties surrounding Dallas, Houston and San Antonio successfully sued to require masks in public schools. The chief executive in the county surrounding Houston, Lina Hidalgo, issued an order on Thursday requiring masks in public and non-religious private schools and day-car centers, citing the rise in pediatric Covid-19 cases, including a baby in Harris County on life support with Covid-19.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rebellion is spreading across the state,\u201d said Nelson Wolff, chief executive in San Antonio\u2019s Bexar County.<\/p>\n
Abbott and Republican allies were trying to quell the rebellion. On Wednesday, the governor and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced they would go to court to block Dallas County\u2019s mask order issued hours before and threatened to sue officials who defy the governor\u2019s order.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe path forward relies on personal responsibility \u2014 not government mandates,\u201d Abbott said in a statement.<\/p>\n
At least one Republican state leader has backtracked. As cases and hospitalizations soared in Arkansas, Governor Asa Hutchinson admitted he regretted signing a bill banning mask mandates in April.<\/p>\n
He called lawmakers back for a special session to reverse the law, but the Republican-dominated Legislature failed to agree on a bill that would overturn the ban. A judge intervened, temporarily blocking the state from enforcing the law.<\/p>\n
In Florida, Alachua County\u2019s Simon was one of two superintendents, along with one in Broward County, defying the governor\u2019s July 30 order.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a bit overwhelming \u2014 and it\u2019s a bit isolating,\u201d Simon said. \u201cI have one other school district going in the same direction that I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she would not back down.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the responsibilities of being in education is to model the behavior that we want children to value,\u201d she said. \u201cStanding up for what\u2019s right is important.\u201d<\/p>\n
More Florida school districts had imposed mask mandates this month only to reverse course and allow parents to opt out after receiving a letter from state Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran expressing \u201cgrave concern\u201d about the flouting of state emergency rules. He warned that a failure to comply would result in sanctions.<\/p>\n
Ryan Green, 34, owner of a home improvement company in High Springs in Alachua County, said his daughter Opal, 10, and son Legend, 6, were ready to go back to school on Tuesday. But after they had been dropped off with new backpacks and lunchboxes \u2014 but no masks \u2014 his wife, Joan, got a call from the assistant principal asking them to pick up Opal.<\/p>\n
Green and his wife had submitted mask exemption forms with parental signatures. But school officials informed them via email before the first day of school that according to district policy, the forms would not be accepted without a physician\u2019s signature. When he tried to drop the kids off again Wednesday, they were not allowed in school.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur governor says it\u2019s parental choice,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cBy doing this, they\u2019re refusing my children an education.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opal and Legend spent the week at home.<\/p>\n
By Jenny Jarvie and Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Atlanta (tca\/dpa) – Carlee Simon, the superintendent of Alachua County Public Schools in Florida, looked forward to welcoming students to the new school year \u2014 one in which they would not be required to wear masks and could, at last, see one another\u2019s faces again. But as the hyper-transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus coursed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1084427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1097108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actualidad"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t