February 15, 2022

On a night when school board directors were to discuss possible changes in masking policy, two dozen residents spoke out against mandatory masking.

One mother told the Unionville- Chadds Ford School Board directors that she brought her 10-year-old son to the Feb. 14 work session even though it was his birthday. That was his choice, she said. He wanted to go to the meeting because he was more interested in ending the forced masking than having a birthday party.

Another mother said her elementary school son had a nosebleed in class one day. The nurse stopped the bleeding and cleaned the boy’s face but didn’t give him a new mask. The mother said her son was still wearing the same blood-filled mask when he got home.

One mother told the story of a young girl in another district who lost her first tooth while in school. Not knowing what to do with the tooth and afraid to remove the mask because she might be hollered at, the girl swallowed the tooth.

Several other parents cited new information about cloth masks being unable to block COVID and the masks most people have been using are ill-fitting and don’t help. And even when there’s a properly fitted mask, most students and even teachers don’t wear them properly.

As Brian Lamb, of Pennsbury Township asked rhetorically, “If mask mandates work, why aren’t they working? Mask mandates, lockdowns, and other COVID restrictions have failed by literally every conceivable metric.”

Lamb went on to say not only that the measures have failed, but there has been a considerable loss in learning for students during the past two years, and that there’s been a “self-inflicted mental health crisis, especially among our children.”

He, and most of the other people who spoke, including some students, all called for an immediate end to the mask mandate. Some urged the board to make a decision during the work session rather than wait another two weeks for the regular meeting.

“We need to stop blindly following the advice of so-called experts. The CDC is not the embodiment of science. They are not infallible. They are not God…Blindly trusting the experts has failed us,” he said.

Lamb continued by saying it’s time to trust the judgment of members of the community and “empower parents to make responsible health decisions for their own children.”

As one other father, Shawn Dignazio of Chadds Ford Township, said later, “Get out of our way and let us be parents.”

And Sue Olivio, also of Chadds Ford said, “Rules that no longer apply are being forced on our kids.”

Another Chadds Ford Township resident, Kim DiFelice, also spoke to the board saying, “I don’t want to make this personal, but I believe you have already done that,” she said in her opening remarks. “You’ve already done that with my children.”

She said she had coffee with one school board director, and she was told she seemed angry.

“I am angry,” said DeFelice who took three of her four kids out of the district because of the masking policy. “I’m angry for all the mothers who drop their kids off at school and drive away crying because they don’t have a choice. They have to go to work, and their kids have to go to school, and they have to kick their kids out of the car with a mask on. I’m mad for all the kids who have killed themselves and the kids who want to. I don’t know why that doesn’t make you angry.”

She also addressed board President Jeff Hellrung directly, saying he did respond to her in an email that was five paragraphs long, an email she described as “a huge commercial for the school district that didn’t speak to any of my points. It didn’t speak to why a medical apparatus can legally be placed on the faces of any child in the district without parental consent.”

Only her oldest still goes to U-CF. Her other three kids are going to a mask optional school where she teaches second grade. As a teacher, she said, “I feel that qualifies me to tell you all that you are doing the wrong thing.”

Only one parent came out in favor of keeping the mask mandates. Brian Sharts, of Chadds Ford, identified himself as a COVID survivor who got the virus from his school-aged daughter.

He explained he started out as a skeptic of masking but, after reading research, said he came to accept their value in stopping the spread.

“I came to the conclusion that masking is an effective public pandemic mitigation strategy. As such, I supported the board when you implemented the policy to return to school with the masking mandate. I still feel that way,” he told directors.

At issue is the possible change to the district’s Health and Safety Plan as it relates to COVID. That plan can be found here.

The board got into a long discussion on that two hours into the meeting. The question is what to do going forward regarding COVID mitigation strategies, specifically as they related to masking. Should the district continue following Chester County Health Department metrics, or those by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The majority of the parents have suggested a third option of making masks optional.

According to a presentation by Assistant Superintendent Tim Hoffman, the administration acknowledges that there have been changes. Among other things, those changes include the fact that no health agency — federal, state, or county — has a mask mandate, that other districts have less restrictive policies, that COVID virulence has decreased as have the number of cases and hospitalizations.

If the board continues to follow county guidelines, it could adjust the plan to less restrictive masking requirements based on community spread metrics, recommend consistent masking K-12, and go to mask optional when community spread numbers fall further.

If it chooses the CHOP guidelines, other metrics including (but not limited to) incident/positivity rate trends, hospitalization rates, and CHOP and IHME projections would be used and, in the absence of a mask mandate, schools should equip the community with the latest local and CDC health guidelines and recommendations so parents can make an informed choice.

The board will vote on any revisions to the plan during the Feb. 28 meeting.