Clovis parents urge school board to ignore mask mandate as classrooms reopen for fall

More than a dozen parents spoke out at Clovis Unified’s board meeting on Wednesday, threatening to take their children out of school, shouting out of turn at trustees, and begging the board to turn against a state mandate that says K-12 students and staff must wear masks while indoors at schools.

Several parents said they attempted to get a mask exemption signed by a doctor, but many doctors are refusing to sign exemption forms.

Board President Steven Fogg asked the board if they would explore a possible loophole in the mask mandate because there is technically no language that says schools cannot offer a grace period for students to avoid mask-wearing while parents seek a doctor’s exemption.

Deputy Superintendent Norm Anderson said there is no grace period for students who are not up to date on vaccinations in any given year. The student does independent study until they can show an updated vaccination record.

Superintendent Eimear O’Farrell and Trustee Susan K. Hatmaker, an attorney, also advised against the move. It could lead to the health department issuing clarification as it did after the district attempted to let parents exempt their own children from masks in July. The California Department of Public Health issued a clarification Friday that only doctors could make exemptions, forcing Clovis Unified to backtrack its policy.

About 5% of students had a mask exemption form filled out as of Friday, which was the deadline for parents to exempt their child.

Some Clovis parents urge school board to ignore mask mandate

During the meeting Wednesday, some parents demanded trustees go against the state mandates, and many wondered how much authority the health department held.

Fogg said no one will ever convince the district to break the law, and O’Farrell told speakers that the California Department of Public Health has the full force of the law behind it, and the district must follow orders.

One parent, who said she had a preschool son in a special education class, said her son’s speech learning would only work without a mask.

“He is learning how to socialize, how to read facial expressions and needs to be watching his teacher’s mouth to know how to properly pronounce, imitate, and correct his letter sounds,” she said. “She (the teacher) needs to see his mouth moving to know how to correct him.”

The parent said she would not send her son to school with a mask, and he was too young to qualify for independent study.

“Am I supposed to stay home and collect absences and get sent truancy notices, and then get dropped from the program that I spent so many months jumping through hoops (for)?”

Parent Danielle Stockdale said her nurse practitioner gave her a list of 50 doctors in the area she could try to get an exemption from.

“I called many of them. None of them return my phone calls. None of them have availability right now … that’s even for telemedicine calls.”

Stockdale said she went back and forth with several doctors but didn’t get anywhere.

“What are you going to do?” she asked the board, “Because I have instructed my son to tell them, ‘No, you’re not putting that face diaper on me.’ My kid is not sick. My kid is not at risk of getting anybody else sick. They should not be having to do this.”

O’Farrell said while parents who spoke had valid concerns, so did parents who advocated for masking in schools.

“I’m quite sure that none of our teachers, none of our students, want to wear a mask. I personally don’t enjoy wearing a mask,” she said.

“Remember, our number one goal is to get our kids back in school. And we’ve had to endure many obstacles, but the one thing we want to do is to get them into our classrooms because we know just being in class, mask or no mask, our children will thrive,” she said. “We had that happen in the spring.”

Near the end of the board discussion, Fogg told parents that having their children in school, even with a mask, is a huge improvement from last year.

Fogg, an ophthalmologist, wears masks for his job and says they work to protect people.

“I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘Hey, you know what, my kid has to wear a mask? I’m not sending him to school.’ But I sure think that’s short-sighted — really, over a mask?”

Clovis, Fresno teachers unions support Newsom’s mask mandate

The criticism from Clovis parents came just hours after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a new mandate requiring all school teachers to be vaccinated or submit to weekly coronavirus testing.

Schools have until Oct. 15 to verify that their staff are vaccinated and put in place weekly testing.

The new rules apply to public and private schools, making California the first state to mandate vaccines or tests for all school employees. Hawai’i last week mandated vaccines for all public employees, including teachers, but that order does not apply to private schools.

The first day of school was already underway for Fresno’s Central Unified students when the governor handed down the abrupt announcement. Fresno Unified — the state’s third-largest school district with more than 70,000 students — reopens classrooms Thursday. Clovis schools begin the fall semester on Monday.

Both the Fresno Teachers Association and the Association of Clovis Educators — a group of Clovis teachers working to unionize — said they support the new vaccine mandate.

“We are in talks with district leadership about systemic mitigation layers that will encourage families and educators to take the vaccine and we will work with district leadership about the implementation details of this new statewide policy,” Fresno Teachers Association President Manuel Bonilla wrote in a statement on Facebook.

Kristin Heimerdinger, the Association of Clovis Educators spokesperson, said teachers are “thrilled” to be back in the classroom with students, and “we want to make sure it stays that way.”

“We want our students to have consistency in their education this year, which depends on keeping students and teachers in class,” Heimerdinger told The Bee. ”The governor’s mandate is another way to ensure that students and staff are kept safe and that we all have access to the consistency they deserve.”

The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Read more from The Bee’s Education Lab here.

This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 8:00 AM.