The Osceola County School District will maintain the 60- day mask mandate for students in elementary, middle and K-8 schools, which parents can still opt-out of tapproved at its last meeting on Aug. 17.
At an emergency School Board meeting Monday, after hearing over two hours of public comment on both sides of the mask mandate issue, the Board did not vote on an allencompassing mask mandate for all students and faculty presented by Board member Terry Castillo. Her motion died for a lack of a second.
Last week, a Florida court struck down the Department of Education’s ability to ban school districts from issuing mask mandates. Orange County quickly changed its mask policy, from an opt-out much like Osceola will operate under through Oct. 4, to a mandatory policy. Currently, Osceola students in grades K-8 can opt out of wearing a mask with a parent’s permission.
“I’m not listening to ‘Big Brother’, I’m listening to Osceola County parents of quarantined students,” Castillo said. “Our children are being affected at a higher rate than last year. I know this is an unpopular stance, but parents have begged me to make that motion.”
Board member Jon Arguello, the only member of the dais not in a mask, called the meeting “a waste of time.”
“It’s not our business to act like doctors,” he said. “The level of fear this will impart on our children, that the air is toxic and that everyone around them is sick, will affect them for the rest of their lives.”
At the meeting, Superintendent Debra Pace said that at the end of last week — the second full week of school — 919 students and 130 staffers had tested positive, and 5,100 students are or have been in quarantine. Celebration K-8 School, in Castillo’s district 1, fully closed and went to distance learning for part of last week.
Many speakers were passionate, emotional, and heated. To show the divisiveness of the issue, 29 people spoke and 17 were against a full mask mandate, generally stating that making a student wear a mask is exclusively the choice of a parent.
One speaker, Michael Kepner, said he wants the choice to not make his son wear a mask at school, but wanted to be a part of a healthy discussion.
“It was important for me fto be here, for me, for my son and for every other kid in school,” he said.
Eleven speakers supported it, touting medical evidence and research from the CDC. One person used their three minutes to speak as a moment of silence for Daniel Joyner, a 36-yearold teacher and coach at Osceola High School, who passed away Sunday as announced by the school.
School Board Chairman Clarence Thacker had to admonish the crowd a number of times for loudly reacting to speakers or the Board. One member of the audience was removed after numerous outbursts, and another left before she could be removed after her own animated reaction.
In the end, the Board agreed to look at case data at the end of the current 60-day mask mandate and make any changes or recommendations then.
