If the choice is Fresno students wear masks, or stay home in quarantine, that’s easy

The new school year had barely begun when Fresno Unified School District officials had to put students from 10 classrooms into quarantines due to COVID exposure.

According to Isabel Sophia Dieppa’s report for The Bee’s Education Lab, the quarantines resulted when students came in close contact with others who tested positive for the respiratory virus.

Cheri Perry told Dieppa how her daughter, a third grader at Malloch Elementary School, had to endure distance learning isolation in her first- and second-grade years. “This is devastating for her to not be at school with her friends.”

For a young person, that outcome would be hard to accept. But in the big picture of COVID reality this fall, quarantines will need to be a possibility. And the basics to beat COVID, like wearing face masks, are a must.

COVID death

Things have started off much worse at schools elsewhere in the nation.

A 13-year-old honors student at a Mississippi died last weekend, one day after testing positive for COVID. Classes resumed in the Smith County School District on Aug. 6, but masks were not required to be worn in classrooms until four days later. Last Tuesday the district had 104 cases among students and staff.

In South Florida’s Hillsborough County Public Schools district, 10,000 students and staff were quarantined just a week into the new year. There were a total of 1,805 COVID-19 cases among students and staff, according to the Tampa-area district.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has fought against mask requirements at schools, even going to far as to say he would withhold funding to districts that imposed mask rules.

Last Tuesday the Visalia Unified School District announced a new policy requiring mask-wearing indoors and outdoors at district schools. In a statement posted on the district’s website, officials said the move was in response to a growing number of school-related infections.

“Additionally, VUSD is experiencing a sharp increase in the number of staff being placed in quarantine, and there has been a need to quarantine a number of classrooms throughout the district,” Interim Superintendent Doug Cardoza said in the statement.

It’s being made abundantly clear that COVID and its delta variant are hitting schools as they reopen for the fall. Whether the teen in Mississippi got the virus at school or elsewhere, her tragic death shows that young people are vulnerable to the disease, too.

So California’s COVID guidelines for schools, and local districts adherence to them, are critical if in-person learning is to continue, and more importantly, be done as safely as possible.

Parents oppose

According to California public health requirements, face masks must be worn inside classrooms unless a student has an authorized medical exemption. Fresno’s medical society has told parents not to expect getting exemptions except in specific cases.

Before Clovis Unified began school last Monday, some parents made last-ditch appeals to avoid mask wearing, carrying signs that said “Let us breathe” to get the point across.

Thankfully, the school board ultimately decided to follow state regulations that say only a doctor can issue exemptions.

Unfortunately, COVID is surging again in the central San Joaquin Valley. Fresno, Tulare, Madera and Kings counties have all had significant jumps in cases. On Wednesday Fresno County had its largest one-day increase in cases in seven months. The cause is the highly contagious delta variant of COVID.

When will all this end? Who knows. For the foreseeable future, getting vaccinated is the best way to stay safe and in school, if a student is 12 or older. Then universal mask wearing inside classrooms will significantly reduce the spread of the disease.

Yes, wearing a mask continues to be an imposition. But kids are resilient. And besides, they already deal with restrictions that matter more to them, like dress codes.

In a community meeting in the Florida district, one high school student told anti-maskers that “This tiny piece of cloth is not taking away your freedom. ... Grow up.”