While the Anchorage School District continues to require students to wear masks in order to attend classes, a grassroots movement is now urging parents to send their children to school unmasked beginning, Tuesday, Feb. 22.
The debate over masking young students has been a contentious issue, both in Alaska and around the nation, with opponents pointing out that children are overwhelmingly immune from serious illness related to Covid. In December Anchorage School District Superintendent Deena Bishop attempted to remove the mask mandate but was blocked by the school board. The current mask mandate has no expiration date.
In defending her initial Dec. 15 announcement that masks would be voluntary in 2022, Bishop said the number of positive cases in the district were very low. Bishop acknowledged that the issue is very divisive, but her decision was based on current case counts.
“As you can tell not everybody is on the same page,” she told the board. “Our community is very split on this.”
Just 40 miles north in the Mat-Su, the states second largest school district ditched its mask mandates on Jan. 31 after passionate and vocal parental opposition.
Across the nation, protests have unfolded with students walking into schools and refusing to cover their face. These efforts have occurred in Virginia, Michigan, New York, and elsewhere. Now, it appears set to happen in Anchorage.
“Enough is Enough. My child is going to return to school without a mask on February 22nd,” Carl Hiers posted to Facebook earlier this month.
He has created an online campaign, urging fellow Anchorage parents to take part in the protest.
“I hope you join me,” Hiers said. “They can send him home if they wish, or they can admit, that maybe this whole thing has both drawn on too long, and been blown way out of proportion. I’m fine with either at this point.”
As of Feb. 18, Hiers’ post listed 19 people as “going” and 16 “interested.”
According to the Anchorage School District website, there are 84 confirmed Covid cases as of Feb. 18. The school district includes 43,544 students and 5,833 employees. To date, there have been no reported deaths among Anchorage School District students since the onset of Covid.
9 Comments
So who’s in charge of school’s? It appears the school board . We know parents do have a say anylonger. Now the superintendent looks like she lost her say too. Do we see a NAZI conspiracy here too?
WE the ‘folks’ allowed all of this! How? Progressivism( is a sneaky nibble at a time long term goal- nearly reached now), we were hard working tax paying ‘legal’ US citizens, who naively trusted our leaders and even Unionist ‘public’ schools, and the teachers who sold out to the Leftist Unions. Now we have arrived to an era when WE need to drain the swamp, totally dismantle huge, powerful Unions that hold the teachers and thus your kids and my grandkids hostage. Know this: WE have paid for every bit of every building, heat, lights water, chair and desk, drop of water! Now let us use our God given Constitutional rights to reclaim all. Go back to local “civil service”. PS: not one $ more to have us be in 5 lowest performing state and local districts in entire USA!
It is time to resist and to show the school district who makes the decisions on what is best for our kids. Note to the ASD, it is the parents, not them. It is time for peaceful protest and civil disobedience. They can’t kick every kid out of school. Every student should show up without a mask and dare the schools to do something.
I sincerely hope parents still send their kids to school on the 22nd without their masks, despite the announcement from the superintendent that ASD will be “mask optional” by the 28th! Don’t put up with it for one more week!
Take your kids out of these Woke schools now.
My great niece and husband have always home schooled 4 kids. These kids read years above public ” grade levels” (very low standards) they raised prize winning animals, poultry, veggies, lambs for wool and meat, bees for honey and pollination. Do art, belong to 4H and FFA, can make, sing, play instruments, stitch up clothing and if necessary themselves. Which kids do you think are smarter, more capable, etc. ? Them or public school kids who have been brain washed to be less than?
This is really not about masking. The “thing” is never the “thing”…it’s some other game with a particular motive. While the effort to stand up to school boards on CRT, trans sports etc. is admirable, a BETTER use of time and energy should be on Home Schooling. Faster results.
Sure hope more than 25 people are doing this or it will have zero affect on the overall situation. Elementary students in Wrangell (Southeast Alaska) staged a walk out, a parade and were able to win their freedoms back.
Until enough people have a backbone, this will make no difference. Try it in Eagle River instead of liberal Anchorage.
Or: Homeschool. Your. Kids.
Pfizer was sued in 2009 for 2.3 billion by the US Government for fraud, the largest lawsuit in history against a drug company. Our government has allowed its citizens to be pimped out by these drug companies for the largest experiment the world has ever known. This medical tyranny is medical rape. When you forcefully coerce, shame, fire people, ruin their reputations, silence them, and force people to do actions with their body they do not wish to do, its rape. The mask mandates are not on the exact level but pretty close. Lets quit dancing around these issues. Use facts and data and most of be direct without emotion. Emotion will not win the day, facts will. Read the US Constitution, Our Alaska State Constitution, and our city charter. Then bring your wits and facts to the legislature and assembly meetings to expose these frauds and litigate against them so they may never have office again. And finally Vote the bums out.