School Asking DC To Mask To Accomodate An Other

[Anonymous]

It’s a small thing to do for a short period of time. I think anyone bristling at this request is not empathetic and operating from a juvenile point self important point of view.

[Anonymous]

The Swiss cheese effect does help. This child and all the other folks in classroom masking helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would tell my child to mask and do the right thing. Part of growing up is being respectful to others needs. But, you need to move your child. The other child deserves to have kids with nice parents in the classroom.

X♾️

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I got an email asking my child to wear a mask in a certain class becuse another child had a 'medical situation'. If we decline, DC will be moved to another class.

Am I wrong to be put off by this? A 'medical situation', without further explanation, could be anything between luekemia and being the child of one of those drama queens that won't let go of the mask because of the politics behind it. I won't force my kid to endure another year of masking to support the latter but I would bend over backwars to accomodate the former.

How do I go about answering the request?

Reply your kid has a medical situation and can't wear a mask.

If they have to move someone, why should it be your kid.

[Anonymous]

Nope. Not masking at all and neither is my kid. If yours has a special situation, deal with it. We aren't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got an email asking my child to wear a mask in a certain class becuse another child had a 'medical situation'. If we decline, DC will be moved to another class.

Am I wrong to be put off by this? A 'medical situation', without further explanation, could be anything between luekemia and being the child of one of those drama queens that won't let go of the mask because of the politics behind it. I won't force my kid to endure another year of masking to support the latter but I would bend over backwars to accomodate the former.

How do I go about answering the request?

"Am I wrong to be put off by this?"

Yes, yes you are.

Disagree. I'd be put off, too. It's highly unlikely that the school required any sort of doctor note for this request--and what doctor would actually say that a kid who is so medically fragile is fine to go to school unless everyone around them masks?

Exactly.

It sounds like security theater. What school is this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got an email asking my child to wear a mask in a certain class becuse another child had a 'medical situation'. If we decline, DC will be moved to another class.

Am I wrong to be put off by this? A 'medical situation', without further explanation, could be anything between luekemia and being the child of one of those drama queens that won't let go of the mask because of the politics behind it. I won't force my kid to endure another year of masking to support the latter but I would bend over backwars to accomodate the former.

How do I go about answering the request?

"Am I wrong to be put off by this?"

Yes, yes you are.

Disagree. I'd be put off, too. It's highly unlikely that the school required any sort of doctor note for this request--and what doctor would actually say that a kid who is so medically fragile is fine to go to school unless everyone around them masks?

Exactly.

It sounds like security theater. What school is this?

You sound like a loonie.

[Anonymous]

Every time I stumble into a VA public schools thread, I thank the Lord we live elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish they worked. I really do. But unfortunately trial after randomized trial show they don’t.

They don’t work for flu (decades of research shows that), they barely work for wildfire smoke (and they need to be n95 for that). Unfortunately the data shows they are not an effective mitigation measure. I wish this child the very very best and I hope the vaccine is effective for them, but asking others to wear masks for them isn’t doing anything to keep them safer.

Of course masks work. Stop spreading your disinformation.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/masks-work-distorting-science-to-dispute-the-evidence-doesnt/

No they don’t. Again i wish they did. https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses

Surgical masks: “Compared with wearing no mask in the community studies only, wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu-like illness/COVID-like illness (9 studies; 276,917 people); and probably makes little or no difference in how many people have flu/COVID confirmed by a laboratory test (6 studies; 13,919 people).”

Respirators: “ Compared with wearing medical or surgical masks, wearing N95/P2 respirators probably makes little to no difference in how many people have confirmed flu (5 studies; 8407 people); and may make little to no difference in how many people catch a flu-like illness (5 studies; 8407 people), or respiratory illness (3 studies; 7799 people).”

That is not a legit news source.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not know what district you are in - may have missed - but the ACLU ruling only applies to these ten districts: The 10 school districts affected by the ruling are Albemarle County Public Schools, Manassas City Public Schools, Henrico County Public Schools, Chesterfield County Public Schools, Cumberland County Public Schools, York County School Division, Bedford County Public Schools, Chesapeake City Public Schools, Loudoun County Public Schools and Fairfax County Public Schools. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/03/24/virgina-masking-school-aclu-suit/

The issue at this point is obviously the concerning lack of data that children masking prevents any sort of spread - esp as they take them off to eat etc. And when the vaccine is available to every school-aged high-risk child that needs it plus boosters - why ask others to to mask for you? Does this child go anywhere besides school, if so, then they are surrounded by non-masked. Children already have a low r-naught (see Catalonia study as example).

The high-risk child can mask themselves as well if the parents feel like asking them to do that. There are no studies showing kid's wearing non-fit tested masks are reducing spread. All the MMWR's and observational studies the CDC promoted of schools - when the timelines are expanded - show no reduction in spread/positive tests in mask mandated districts vs mask optional. And any observational studies done in 2020 or 2021 were using cloth masks so we can immediately see that a supposed effect is suspect. When you dig in deeper you'll see that their contract tracing only tested post-exposure of non-masked students - immediately confounding results.

Asking parents to make their students mask is a virtue signal at best at this point in 2023. COVID is endemic; it will be around the entire life of that child. Almost every child has had at this point per serological data. They can be vaccinated. They can mask themselves.

This is not justifiable from a public health perspective at this point.

You really do go to great lengths to show what an uncaring person you are.

PP poster here - I do care. I want this high-risk student to be safe. I care about data-driven decision making, data-driven risk reduction and data-driven mitigation. That's why you'll see I advocated for the vaccine for high-risk and air exchange rates. But as far as masks go, there is no data that defends mandating them on classmates - especially children - at this stage. A wish, hope and Fiegl-Ding tweets do not an effective mitigation measure make. If a student is truly high risk, it is dangerous to put them in an environment like a classroom whether its the flu or COVID or any number of other viruses - putting a tshirt or a non-fit tested N95 or a knock off KN94 on their fellow classmates faces is not going to protect them. I would advocate they have the option for VAVA as they recover and hopefully get well enough soon to go back into a public environment whether that be a grocery store, mall or school classroom.

No, you are selfish and self serving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not know what district you are in - may have missed - but the ACLU ruling only applies to these ten districts: The 10 school districts affected by the ruling are Albemarle County Public Schools, Manassas City Public Schools, Henrico County Public Schools, Chesterfield County Public Schools, Cumberland County Public Schools, York County School Division, Bedford County Public Schools, Chesapeake City Public Schools, Loudoun County Public Schools and Fairfax County Public Schools. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/03/24/virgina-masking-school-aclu-suit/

The issue at this point is obviously the concerning lack of data that children masking prevents any sort of spread - esp as they take them off to eat etc. And when the vaccine is available to every school-aged high-risk child that needs it plus boosters - why ask others to to mask for you? Does this child go anywhere besides school, if so, then they are surrounded by non-masked. Children already have a low r-naught (see Catalonia study as example).

The high-risk child can mask themselves as well if the parents feel like asking them to do that. There are no studies showing kid's wearing non-fit tested masks are reducing spread. All the MMWR's and observational studies the CDC promoted of schools - when the timelines are expanded - show no reduction in spread/positive tests in mask mandated districts vs mask optional. And any observational studies done in 2020 or 2021 were using cloth masks so we can immediately see that a supposed effect is suspect. When you dig in deeper you'll see that their contract tracing only tested post-exposure of non-masked students - immediately confounding results.

Asking parents to make their students mask is a virtue signal at best at this point in 2023. COVID is endemic; it will be around the entire life of that child. Almost every child has had at this point per serological data. They can be vaccinated. They can mask themselves.

This is not justifiable from a public health perspective at this point.

You really do go to great lengths to show what an uncaring person you are.

PP poster here - I do care. I want this high-risk student to be safe. I care about data-driven decision making, data-driven risk reduction and data-driven mitigation. That's why you'll see I advocated for the vaccine for high-risk and air exchange rates. But as far as masks go, there is no data that defends mandating them on classmates - especially children - at this stage. A wish, hope and Fiegl-Ding tweets do not an effective mitigation measure make. If a student is truly high risk, it is dangerous to put them in an environment like a classroom whether its the flu or COVID or any number of other viruses - putting a tshirt or a non-fit tested N95 or a knock off KN94 on their fellow classmates faces is not going to protect them. I would advocate they have the option for VAVA as they recover and hopefully get well enough soon to go back into a public environment whether that be a grocery store, mall or school classroom.

No, you are selfish and self serving.

huh - is this an opportunity to demonstrate how generous and good yoi are? or is this about the actual balance of accomodations that reasonably address a disability without over-burdening others?

[Anonymous]

I still don't get the premise. They want the whole class to mask or just OP's kid who sits near? If the latter, why not just change seats instead of making OP's kid switch classes? If the former, does that mean every other child in class has agreed to mask and they want to switch OP's kid because they're the only holdout? Hard to believe.

[Anonymous]

It sound like they are asking the classroom to mask and those whose parents refuse can be placed in another room so no need for drama. I’d prefer my kid in that room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I still don't get the premise. They want the whole class to mask or just OP's kid who sits near? If the latter, why not just change seats instead of making OP's kid switch classes? If the former, does that mean every other child in class has agreed to mask and they want to switch OP's kid because they're the only holdout? Hard to believe.

Hard to believe...except that these are the same people who closed schools for two years ignoring all science and worldwide best practices.

OP, let this be a wake up call to find a better school.

[Anonymous]

Is this APS or ACPS? I would ask if this will be a temporary situation, or a permanent request for this entire school year. If a permanent request, likely moving classes is the best option?