It’s hard to single out the most absurd part of the story of what happened to three moms who signed up to speak about Critical Race Theory (CRT) and mask mandates at the school board meeting in a small SW Washington town.
Was it when board members picked on one of the parents and then blamed a “disruption” on her?
Was it when the parents were locked out of the meeting?
Or was it when the cops were called?
It’s such a target rich environment of outrage that it’s hard to know where to start. But let’s give it a go.
The three moms, Tatyana Stepanyuk, Patricia Bellamy and Melissa Mcilwain, signed up to speak at the Washougal, Washington school board meeting on May 11th. The town sits on the Columbia River just across from Portland.
The three signed up to address mask mandates at the schools and critical race theory being added to the curriculum under orders from Governor Jay Inslee.
But they never got to speak.
The sparsely attended in-person meeting, which was also broadcast online, barely got off the ground before the school superintendent and her underling insisted that the one person in the room without a mask should put one on. Stepanyuk invoked the governor’s words that she wasn’t required to wear one due to medical and religious exemptions. She noted that everyone else had a mask on so they were protected, no problem. Yet, the masked officials spent their valuable meeting time pedantically explaining to the woman how she needed to comply. But for the actions of Superintendent Mary Templeton and the board disrupting the meeting it would have progressed as normal. But that was not to be. Instead their superintendent and board caused a cluster storm of reaction from which the district may not soon recover.
