Group Protests Reinstated Mask Mandate for San Diego Students, Founder Runs for School Board

The San Diego Unified School District reinstated mask policies on Monday, however a non-profit group is pushing back against the mandate arguing students should be able to attend classes mask-less.

“Effective Monday, July 18, indoor masking will be required at all schools and District offices,” the district stated in a letter to parents, adding that the county has entered a “high” Covid community level.

“If your student is participating in summer school or other summer enrichment program, please send them to school or their program with a mask. If they do not have one, masks will be provided. Students and staff will be required to wear their masks while indoors only. “

On Monday, the group Let Them Breathe, which has had success in overturning school vaccine mandates, held a rally against the latest mask policy.

“San Diego unified is reinstating an unscientific, unlawful and harmful mask mandate even though there is no state mandate at this point,” the group’s founder Sharon McKeeman said at the rally.

McKeeman recognizes masks are not only harmful to students, but that virtual learning conducted via Zoom is also not helpful.

“Masking has been proven to harm social and linguistic academic development, and that means this mandate is going to harm the population of students that is the most vulnerable to academic loss,” she stated.

“Masking children makes no difference in transmission rates and most kids have already had Covid and have strong natural immunity.”

On Twitter, the group shot back at San Diego Unified School District President Sharon Whitehurst-Payne, who said students who do not want to wear masks can “opt not to return to the regular school” and instead conduct virtual learning via Zoom – or “at that point, just not return.”

Telling unmasked students their option is to “opt not to return to the regular school but to go to the school where they don’t have to go to school at all other than via Zoom.”

Whitehurst-Payne’s solution “violates rights to in-person education & ignores the fact that Zoom is NOT school and fails students,” the group argued.

McKeeman has now announced she’s running for her local school board in Carlsbad Unified’s School Board in sub-district 1, and is urging other parents concerned with masking to join her.

“Instead of just talking to the school board, it’s time to step up and be the school board,” McKeeman stated.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports McKeeman was also joined at the rally by other anti-mask parents running for their local school boards:

Other school board candidates who spoke at the Monday press conference included Becca Williams, who is running for San Diego Unified School Board in sub-district C and had been endorsed by McKeeman, as well as Oceanside School Board sub-district 1 candidate Allyson Mineau, co-director of the Oceanside chapter of the Parent Association, which pressured schools to reopen early in the pandemic.

Let Them Breathe describes itself as “pro-science, pro-safety, pro-smiles.”

The mandate will last for at least 14 days during summer school, however it’s not yet been announced whether the district will impose masks throughout the fall semester.

Reporting from Infowars.

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