About a dozen people turned out for the Aug. 25 Windsor C-1 Board of Education meeting to ask the officials to reinstate a mask mandate at all the district’s schools, which they said would help limit the spread of the coronavirus.
The district started the 2021-2022 school year on Aug. 23 with a mask optional policy.
When students returned to in-school classes late last school year, a mask mandate was in place.
Several members of a group called Windsor Parents for COVID Safety spoke during the meeting and urged school board members to reconsider the current mask policy and require them for situations when social distancing is not possible.
“We have over 100 members who are mostly parents of students in the district,” group member Tony Mueller said. “I think there needs to be a mask policy enforced where masks are required, just like Fox (C-6 School District) right now.”
The Fox Board of Education voted 5-1 Aug. 17 to require masks inside district buildings and at district events.
One couple who attended Windsor’s Aug. 25 meeting spoke against a mask mandate.
Mueller said the Windsor Parents for COVID Safety group has started a petition calling for the district to implement a mask requirement, and in about a week, gathered signatures from more than 300 people.
His wife, Tara, said Aug. 26 that the group continues to collect signatures and will present the petition to the school board later.
Another group member and district parent, Melanie Willis, became emotional when she spoke about her child who has a pre-existing medical condition and the need for a mask mandate.
Willis said she fears for the safety of her child who will come in close contact with students who may not be wearing masks.
Valerie Soberanis, also a group member and district parent, said she feels people should band together for the general public good, which means wearing masks to curb the spread of COVID-19.
“I think we should work together for everyone’s health and safety,” she said.
She told the board the COVID pandemic “is not going away” and urged the district to follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Pediatric Society and the Jefferson County Health Department, all of which recommend students wear masks while indoors.
Angela Sanderson, also part of the group, said an optional mask policy is “reckless,” adding that it’s “too high of a gamble with their lives.”
Tara Mueller, a St. Louis County Special School District teacher who did not attend the meeting, said Windsor parents decided to join together and attend the school board meeting after seeing a similar movement at the Aug. 17 Fox board meeting.
“We saw what happened at the Fox school board meeting where a group came to promote the use of masks,” she said.
Mueller said it is important for parents to take a stand due to the current surge in COVID cases.
“Now, with the Delta variant raging, the county went into red status (on the Health Department’s four-color COVID-19 warning system),” she said. “(Wearing a mask) is a minor inconvenience to stop the spread of droplets and to protect the lives of our children.”
Tonia Lovelace-Poss, a retired teacher, and her husband, Doug Poss, spoke against a mask mandate.
“The best way to protect the children from getting ill is to keep them healthy with vitamin D and voluntary testing,” Tonia Lovelace-Poss said. “My concern is there is a lot of medical misinformation out there.”
Doug Poss, who said he worked in the medical field, spoke against a mask requirement and advocated battling the disease with vitamin D.
Tim McCraw, the school board president, said the board will consider all the comments from the meeting.
“We will discuss it as a board and will proceed as the board decides,” he said.