'It makes me feel scared': Florida 4th grader slams school board over masking policy

A student in the Martin County School District in Florida attended a school board meeting on May 12 to give his account of wearing face masks during school. It struck a chord with me, as the mom to a fifth grader who, this year, has also been forced to wear masks during school, even in gym class, where the kids work up a sweat playing intensive games of castle ball.

"I just turned 10-years-old and I am a fourth grader at Felix A. Williams," the student told the school board at an emergency meeting. "I was expecting school to be a little bit different, in the beginning, but I didn't think it would stay this way all year long."

"And I was surprised by the rules. A lot of them didn't make any sense to me, like the fact that we were not allowed to play on the playground or have student council or turn to face each other at lunch. And we also have to wear masks outside at PE and on track."

He slammed the practice of teachers forcing kids to constantly mask, saying that "one teacher walks around with a clipboard full of referrals for any student whose mask isn't on properly. It makes me feel scared." This teacher, he said, keeps her mask down to yell at them for not masking, which makes this student and his friends "very mad."

"This happens a lot," he said. "And it seems unfair that teachers take their masks off while they yell at us kids that we need to pull ours up. I asked my mom if there was a word for this, and she said there is: hypocrisy."

"Wearing a mask all day makes me feel really tired, and gives me really bad headaches. Sometimes I miss school and I need to lay low in the dark until they're gone."

He can't catch his breath, he can't focus, and upon seeing his teacher outside of school she didn't even recognize him "because she's never seen my face before," he said. This is the same teacher who sits without her mask, at her desk, because she has asthma. He asked for masks to be made optional.

The student's message is so similar to what I've been hearing from my son and his friends. They mask, teachers mask most of the time, CDC guidance indicates that vaccinated people should have no issue indoors, either with vaccinated or non-vaccinated people. Still, school districts have been making up their own guidance, even in light of the CDC's recommendations.

It's as though school boards, teachers unions, and administrators were so gung-ho about getting onboard with the pandemic-inspired restrictions that they are now reluctant to let them go.

For some reason, the new guidance from the CDC has been complicated for school districts to sort out. Part of that may be because Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden's top COVID aide, has said that kids will still need masks even though the vaccinated grown-ups they are with will not, though this goes against evidence that shows kids are not big vectors of the virus.

Even so, schools are reluctant to fully reopen until kids have been vaccinated, even though none of the vaccines have yet been approved for the under-12 set. The CDC announced on Tuesday that while they would be revising their schools guidance, the new recommendations would be for schools in which most kids are vaccinated.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said on May 11, a day before the Martin County School Board meeting where the student from Felix A. Williams spoke, that children who have not been vaccinated should not be wearing face masks in schools.

"These kids do not need to be wearing these masks, OK? I'm sorry, they don't," DeSantis said. "We need to be able to let them be kids and let them act normally. And that's what should be the case in the fall throughout the school year."

DeSantis didn't issue any executive orders barring the practice of masking, but he did clarify the state's intention with regard to schools. "What's our direction to the school districts and the other schools? Our direction is relatively simple. Have a normal school year. That's what we want, and that's what will happen."

Martin County School District isn't the only one in Florida enforcing masking on students. Palm Beach, St. Lucie, Indian River, and Okeechobee also require students and staff to mask.

With school districts making up their own rules as they go along, not feeling obligated to follow CDC guidance, instead letting their fears and habits guide them, kids are the ones paying the price. Kids have the most to lose in this year's long loss of education and learning stability, yet they are being held to confusing and arbitrary standards to satisfy adults to whom the children pose virtually no risk.

Despite the meeting held to discuss masking measures in Martin County, the school board opted to keep the requirements in place, stating "Masks are required to be worn appropriately covering mouth and nose unless otherwise directed from MCSD personnel (includes but not limited to buses, classrooms, hallway transitions, bathrooms, cafeteria, common areas, etc."