Parents are Done with CDA School District

A lot has been happening this week but I’m going to focus on the CDA school district for this moment because of all the drama happening today.
 
As a reminder, the CDA school board met on Monday for their regularly scheduled monthly meeting. A lot of the time spent at that meeting was discussing CARES funding (they’re about to get a THIRD round of C0vid funding) and their mask mandate policy. They decided, after going back and forth about what government entity they were going to listen to this month, that they will keep the mask mandate in place for the next 2 weeks as they wait and see if anyone spreads C0vid from Spring Break. This, mind you, is after the head nurse informing them that there are only 5 cases of positivity within the 11,500 students/faculty/administrators within the school district, but “the day over day positivity rate is stagnant and not below 1.” That’s below ONE person who has this cold virus. You can’t even find less than one of those 11,500 people that doesn’t have the flu this time of year! Oh wait, the flu’s been eradicated by C0vid so I guess this is the only year you would ever find someone who doesn’t have flu. **insert sarcastic eyeroll here**.
 
Parents who watched the board meeting on Monday were absolutely flabbergasted that Lisa May threw a hissy fit about the idea of not having forced masks on everyone who stepped foot on the school’s hallowed ground. There was discussion back and forth, with Casey Morrisroe and Jennifer Brumley both asking where the bar was being set because it seems, and parents are going to ask, about the rules changing every time the board meets. In the end they decided to compromise and come back together for a special meeting on April 19^th to see if there was a spike in cases “due to Spring Break.” (We won’t talk about all the spring sports happening with NO ONE wearing masks, on school property, off school property, in groups. at meets, etc.)
 
After the school board meeting, a few parents were throwing around a few ideas about how to get the school board’s attention because obviously emails and phone calls weren’t working, and comments are turned off of every board meeting livestream so no one can comment while the meeting is going on. That parent discussion turned into the idea of allowing their children to go to school maskless on Friday. The kids were all for not having to have difficulties breathing, and parents were all for it because it meant they wouldn’t have to worry about their kids not being able to breathe, while drawing attention to the fact that this mandatory mask policy is pointless. Word spread through parent groups on social media quicker than Fauci changing his mind about C0vid precautions.
 
Word got back to the school administrators that people were planning a protest on Friday so they put out an email to parents late Thursday afternoon:

That email lit a fire under a few parent’s backsides and they doubled down, planning a last-minute parent protest on Friday morning to coincide with the kids going to school maskless. Parents met on the corner of Ramsey and Hanley, in front of Lake City High School, to peacefully protest the hogwash policies by the board. There were about 40 parents of children of all ages standing on that street corner with signs and smiles to show their support for the students and the parental RIGHT to make their own health decisions regarding their kids.

On the student side of things, there have been reports by students and parents that police officers were standing out in front of schools handing out masks to everyone that didn’t have one, and if you were caught without them you would be sent to in-school suspension. The funny part is that every kid who was sent to in-school suspension are all put together in the same room and made to sit there for the rest of the day. The administrator’s reasoning is “to keep the rest of the student population SAFE.” ….. I’m sure I can’t be the only one that sees the irony in this. Also, the correlation has been made that this in-school suspension sounds a bit like segregation but “it’s for the safety of the students.”
 
The protest may be over but there’s still work to be done. Here’s what we can do NOW:

• Continue allowing children to go to school without masks. Not only will they be able to breathe, but they will get their first taste of standing up for what’s right, not what’s easy.
• Call and/or email your child’s principal and explain exactly why their excuse of “Just doing my job” does NOT work.
• Send emails to Dr. Steven Cook, the current superintendent of the CDA School District and Board of Trustees, politely explaining why their continuation of masks is absolutely illogical and tyrannical.
• Start sending emails (or cc them on the above ones) to the two superintendent candidate finalists and also explain to them why the continuation of masks is absolutely illogical and tyrannical. (The school district announced yesterday that the finalists are the current Assistant Superintendent of Elementary Education and Instruction for Coeur d’Alene Public Schools Dr. Kate Orozco, and the Superintendent of Dickinson Public Schools in Dickinson, North Dakota, Dr. Shon Hocker.)
• For every post on social media, use the hashtags #FreetheCDASchools and #WeStandfortheKids. Download the above graphic if you’d like. The schools and school boards are holding our kids hostage, trying to go around the “Trust the Science” mantra they’ve been spouting all year, changing the finish line to suit whatever works for them. This is your time to speak up, speak out, and inform anyone who will listen that it’s time for a change.