High school teachers skip class a second day after district pulls back from mask mandate
A Northern California high school canceled classes Thursday and Friday as dozens of its teachers refused to report to class in protest of the high school district’s decision to relax state-imposed campus mask mandates.
Word came from Grass Valley’s Nevada Union High School principal in a one-paragraph announcement to families posted to social media and first reported in The Union newspaper: “Nevada Union High School will be closed today, Thursday, February 24, 2022, due to the number of teacher absences needed to support students in the classroom.”
The Union reported as many as 40 teachers did not show up to work Thursday. Roughly the same number sat out Wednesday’s classes, according to a Union report. Photos in the Grass Valley newspaper show students clustered in the school’s theater.
Eric Mayer, president of the Nevada Union High School District Teachers Association, said the exact number of teachers was unclear Thursday, but that the sit-out was not an organized action.
On Friday, classes were canceled again.
Rather, it spoke to teachers’ frustration over the school board’s decision made in a special Tuesday meeting to stop enforcing the indoor masking rules without taking teachers into consideration.
Teachers in ‘impossible position’
“This is teachers saying they’re put in an impossible position,” Mayer said, between obeying state mandates requiring indoor masking in California’s schools; and orders from district leaders to defy those mandates — orders that could jeopardize the district’s insurance against liability.
Mayer said other Nevada Union district campuses including Grass Valley’s Bear River and Silver Springs high schools, and Ghidotti Early College High School, on the Sierra College campus, remained open Thursday.
“It’s bizarre. The state will discuss the rules on Monday,” Mayer said. “Why do this in such a rush?”
California health officials nearly two weeks ago paused a decision on mask mandates until Monday to give communities and school districts time to hash out any changes and add any safeguards. While many Sacramento-area districts including Elk Grove Unified and San Juan Unified stood pat, Sierra foothill and suburban districts in El Dorado, Placer, Tuolumne, and now Nevada County, bucked the order during the two-week pause.
Loss of insurance coverage threatened
“We stand to lose our insurance,” Mayer said. “This is not about masking, it’s about the board not honoring our bargaining agreement,” he continued.
The agreement, a memorandum of understanding, states that “our district will follow state health and safety guidelines,” Mayer said. “The guidelines are clear: masks are required in schools.”
Insurance carriers have warned other breakaway school districts refusing to follow the mask mandates including El Dorado Joint Union High School District in nearby El Dorado County that they are on their own and will be held liable and accountable if they choose not to enforce the rule.
Meantime, school administrators and other certificated school staff could also face disciplinary action by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing by failing their legal obligation to implement mask rules, according to the education news site EdSource.
Nevada Joint Union High School District told parents and students in a Monday memo of a “significant change” to its student masking protocols, saying it was lifting the mandate effective Tuesday in favor of an “ask, but don’t tell” policy.
Districts ‘caught in the middle’
“The enforcement of student masking will be accomplished by educating students and asking them to mask, but no further actions of exclusion from class or school related activities will be taken,” the letter read.
The stance and language hewed closely to a letter to parents from El Dorado Union High School District that also eschewed the mandate last week, deciding not to enforce state rules requiring face coverings indoors at K-12 schools.
The Monday letter was followed by a district board vote Tuesday night adopting a resolution that lifted the mask rule.
District officials in their letter said they and other California school districts are “caught in the middle of a very difficult and progressively escalating situation where we acknowledge our obligation to comply with state and California Department of Public Health mandates and our ability to effectively and humanely enforce them.”
Saying that following the requirements has caused “significant disruption” to learning in the Grass Valley district, leaders concluded that “enforcement is unsustainable.”
COVID unrest in Nevada County
Nevada County has been roiled in recent weeks with activists mounting a recall effort against public officials they accuse of overstepping their authority on COVID-19 contract tracing and other public health measures. The group recently “stormed” the county’s elections office, elections officials told The Bee, forcing officials to close the office’s lobby.
Last week, students and parents demonstrated against the district’s enforcement of the mask mandates outside Nevada Union High School, The Union reported.
District superintendent Brett W. McFadden was immediately unavailable for comment, but has reached out to Mayer via text, the union leader said. A meeting between district leaders and teachers’ representatives could happen quickly, Mayer said.
“The thing we want as a unit — we want to restore and repair our relationship” with the district, Mayer said. “We owe it as public servants. Having school closed is not what anyone wants.”
This story was originally published February 24, 2022 at 2:13 PM with the headline "High school teachers skip class a second day after district pulls back from mask mandate."
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