by Scott Jentsch

School Districts have become modern-day battlegrounds, as board meetings erupt into heated debates, with sign waving, shouting, and other disruptive behavior by attendees. The issue at hand is whether students and staff in schools should be wearing masks, especially those that are unvaccinated.

NPR published an article today about that very subject, and the impact that partisan divisiveness is causing, both in the short term and in the long term:

In the small southern Indiana city of New Albany, school board meetings are normally nothing special.

The elected board members discuss, vote on budgets and other plans before the meeting is quietly wrapped up. But nothing prepared Elaine Murphy, the president of the school board of the New Albany-Floyd County school district, for the Aug. 9 meeting. 

Crowds of parents and community members filled the hall at the district office. Murphy estimates around 188 people were there. One man held a flag for the Three Percenters, an anti-government militia movement. Murphy was heckled and called a liar among other names.

"It's sad to say that, you know, now when I see someone come in with a flag and a flagpole, I'm thinking, well, that's a potential weapon," Murphy said. "I've seen that before. And that caused some anxiety."

The main message behind the anger and emotion is clear: don't require face coverings in schools for students.

With no federal mask or vaccine mandate, this type of scene is happening across the country. In many states there are no local or state mask mandates either. Local school board members like Murphy are on the frontline of what is a health crisis at its core, and that's taking a toll. 

:

School boards had to weather other heated partisan debates before like school prayer in the 1980s or sex education in the early 2000s.

Vladimir Kogan, a political science professor at the Ohio State University who studies state and local government, says the situation with masks is similar but political tribalism is at an all-time high in the United States now. Guidance since the start of the pandemic has also been evolving and changing. For instance, there are small scope studies from all over the world that offer different guidance on masking school children and that's adding to the parents' confusion and anger. And local school board members are thrust into the crossfire.

"In spring 2020, the governor's and all the states shut down the schools. But in Fall 2020, they didn't reopen the schools, they said, 'Oh, that's gonna be a local decision,'" Kogan says. "I think it's exactly this idea of blame-shifting, that no matter what you do, you're gonna piss somebody off. So you'd rather that another entity or another official make that call and get the blame from whoever is mad."

You can read the entire article at "She Joined The School Board To Serve Her Community. Now She's In The Crossfire"

The August 23, 2021 School Board meeting featured a large crowd toting signs, shouting during presentations and statements by Board members, and applauded when someone said something they agreed with (anything having to do with "freedom" and not requiring masks in schools). They ignored the School Board President when she cautioned them to quiet down, but she only smiled and did nothing to follow through with her threats to remove disruptive people.

The vitriol has spilled out into the community as well, with people being confronted in school parking lots and told to leave town simply because they wanted to protect children in our schools by asking that masks be mandated.

We need to be very careful about where we go from here as a community. Debate and disagreement are a healthy part of discussions, especially about serious subjects, but when things get out of hand, we're losing sight of what's really important.

Soon, good people will no longer step up and be willing to serve in these positions.

Then where will we be?

Last Updated: Aug 26, 2021 - Archived on Dec 31, 2022

Resources

• SDNBs 2021-22 Fall Re-Entry Plan - July 26, 2021

  Presentation given by Superintendent Joe Garza to the School Board on July 26, 2021. This plan was later approved by a vote of 5-1.

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