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Ashwaubenon board hears criticism of mask requirement

By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer


ASHWAUBENON – Comments and criticism calling for the school district to immediately end the requirement students wear masks were aired at the Wednesday, May 12, school board meeting.

The district’s plans currently call for masks to become optional when students return this fall to start the 2021-22 school year, but they will continue to be required for the remainder of the current year as a way to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, said Superintendent Kurt Weyers.

After having partial or total remote instruction earlier this school year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ashwaubenon has offered in-person instruction five days a week for all grades since the start of the second semester in late January, with a mask requirement remaining in place since then.

The speakers asked the board to end the mask mandate in the final weeks before classes adjourn for the summer.

Julie Witt, a parent with three students attending Ashwaubenon, said she and her mother circulated a petition calling for the district’s mask mandate to end.

Witt, who read from the petition, said the wearing of face coverings should be optional.

“We, the undersigned, believe medical decisions for students should be made by parents and guardians, and not forced upon students by any other entity,” she said. “Parents and guardians should be allowed to assess their families’ physical, mental, emotional and psychological risks and benefits regarding medical decisions, including masking.”

Witt said teachers, who didn’t want to put their names on the petition, spoke privately to her about masks students are wearing becoming contaminated.

“They’re touching everything, they’re touching each other – I mean, if we’re really wearing these masks as a safety and health issue, it’s not effective,” she said.

Witt said wearing masks is making instruction difficult, particularly in the elementary grades, by not being able to see facial expressions and how to pronounce letters and words.

Becky Krull, a veterinarian who called for making wearing masks optional for all district staff and students, said her background makes her qualified to speak on proper mask-wearing, sanitation, health and hygiene.

Krull said she watched last month’s board meeting on YouTube to evaluate the board members’ ability to properly wear face coverings, such as whether they touched or removed their masks and then touched somewhere else without sanitizing their hands to increase their risk of bacterial and viral cross-contamination.

“I don’t make these comments to be rude or embarrass you,” she said. “But in fact, after over nine months of enforced masking, it is extremely frustrating to me as a doctor to watch elected leaders of this board continue to authorize and condone the use of a controversial COVID-19 mitigation tool when they themselves cannot properly use them.”

Krull said she performed her own research with five children to sample and culture their mouths and masks, which had been worn for at least one school day.

“The alarming thing is what I cultured from their mouths would just show up on their masks – that would be assumed – but I’m finding other things that weren’t in their mouth… it’s contamination,” she said. “There’s stuff in the bathroom, the lunchroom, other people, there are things from the ground. So obviously, their masks are being put down and then put back on their face.”

Krull said she believes requiring students to wear masks is an “effort of this board and administration to keep our children safe from a disease that is not affecting them in large numbers.”

“In short, the cure is worse than the disease,” she said.

Krull, who asked the board to learn from its mistakes, said she hopes everyone in the district “can start the healing of this community and our children because there’s a lot of healing to be done.”

“What’s happened to them over the last 15 months is not their fault, and it’s out of their control,” she said. “A bunch of adults trying to protect them has rocked their world. How we heal and move forward is entirely in your control.”

Krull asked the board to vote on repealing the mask mandate, but no action was taken at the meeting.

Four other speakers also called for no longer requiring the wearing of masks on school property.

Beth Mader, who provided the board information about 31 of the state’s 72 counties having at least one school or district where masks are optional, said more than 65,000 students in Wisconsin have a choice whether to wear them.

Districts in the state currently have the discretion as to whether to require wearing masks on school property after the Wisconsin Supreme Court on March 31 struck down the state of emergency declaration of Gov. Tony Evers.

Board response

Discussion during the public forum remained civil until some in the audience took exception with comments from board vice president Brian Van De Kreeke, who said he was disappointed with the remarks from parents calling for the district’s mask requirement to end immediately.

“Just a few short months ago, many of you were here demanding that we reopen the schools,” he said. “We opened the schools earlier, if not about at the same time, as some of the other schools (in the area)… I would have thought you’d have come here and said, ‘thank you,’ because we kept our schools open for your kids. You might have one, two, three kids yourselves. We have 3,000 kids that we’re dealing with, 300 staff members that we’re dealing with, and we’re trying to keep them protected, we’re trying to keep those kids protected, and we’re providing a safe environment for your kids.”

Van De Kreeke said seeking to end the mask requirement in the current school year’s final days is “a futile effort.”

“My opinion would be that we continue our policy until the end of the school year, because it makes sense, and because it kept the kids in school,” he said. “If we want to change something come summer school or the fall, our intention, my intention is that we’re not wearing masks in fall.”

Weyers said the board will make a final decision at its August meeting on whether to make wearing masks optional for the 2021-22 school year.

For this year’s summer school, which has more than 1,000 students enrolled, Weyers said the district currently plans to require masks be worn for indoor classes, but be optional for outdoor classes.

“It’s a way for us to dip our toe in the water and try (no longer requiring masks),” he said. “We think we’re going to be very successful.”

Weyers said this year’s high school graduation ceremony, planned outdoors June 13 at Goelz Field, might be held without requiring masks.

“We have alternate plans for an indoor ceremony, if necessary, but we really hope to have the outdoor ceremony,” he said.

Mike Mader, the board’s open enrollment representative, said he doesn’t want to see the mask mandate end before the current school year is over, but he favors not requiring them for sports this summer.

“My kids play in basketball, and we’re going to all these tournaments,” he said. “No one’s wearing a mask there. We haven’t seen any outbreaks (of COVID-19) with that. We haven’t seen any aftereffects with that. I think it’s very harmful to athletes who are sweating, especially in 90-degree weather, to be wearing their masks.”
Weyers said not requiring masks for sports this summer is something the district can consider.

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