The Washington Post - USA (2022-02-20)

A6 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20 , 2022

happening at the front of the room, even when he sits close by and squints extra-hard. John’s school system recently made masks optional, but his mother is waiting to opt him out of the mask requirement until infection rates drop — although she plans to submit the form this week. Knowing that he cannot take off his mask at school, John has given up on his glasses, which he stows in his backpack, useless, during class. But the fact that he cannot learn easily makes the fourth-grader mad. “Masks should be optional ev- erywhere,” John said, pointing out that so many people in Vir- ginia — including him — have coronavirus vaccinations (more than 70 percent of the state is vaccinated, per state data). “Why do I have to wear a mask?” Roughly four hours away in Rockingham County, Va., 13-year- old Elizabeth Eads takes the op- posite view. Elizabeth believes masking should be required for a lot of reasons, but the most important of these is her grandfather, whom she calls Papaw. He is one of Elizabeth’s favorite people in the universe, but he’s not always healthy, suffering from a chronic disease that is causing his airways to collapse, Elizabeth said, as well as congestive heart failure. Before the pandemic, she and Papaw, who is 91, loved spending time together, eating meals together almost every day. Now, she hardly sees him except to quickly drop off groceries — especially since her school made masking optional. When Elizabeth shows up to her tiny, Christian private school these days, almost the entire student body is maskless, she esti- mated. This makes her worry for Papaw. “Say I got covid at school and

... Papaw needed to go to the
hospital, like if he had something
in his lungs, then Mom would be
quarantining because I had covid
and she wouldn’t be able to take
him, and Dad would be quaran-
tining,” Elizabeth said.
Elizabeth’s grandmother
wouldn’t be able to drive Papaw
to the emergency room because
she can no longer handle high-
ways. So, “it would be really hard
to get him to the doctor,” Eliza-
beth said.
One of Elizabeth’s close friends
prefers to go maskless, she said,
which has been tough. Still, when
Elizabeth approached this friend
one day and explained her con-
cern for Papaw, the girl was recep-
tive, Elizabeth said. She seemed
to understand Elizabeth’s desire
to protect her grandfather and is
wearing a mask at school, al-
though it occasionally slips below

ble at Park View, Angela said, and she knows firsthand that teen- agers “aren’t the best in hygiene.” She also thought of her older family members, those who need medical care and would be at high risk if they caught the coronavirus. She told herself that the pandemic is bigger than any one hu- man being, than any person’s po- litical beliefs or desire to go maskless or set of bruised feelings. And she had a realization. “I tried saying in my head that I’m not speaking to them” — meaning the angry White parents, Angela said. “I’m speaking to the school board, because the school board is supposed to be there for the students.” She walked back to the meeting room and read her speech all the way through. “Students need to be masked,” Angela told the sea of adults, “to keep other students and their families safe.” Almost three weeks later, Lou- doun’s superintendent an- nounced he was making masks optional for all students and staff, effective immediately, in re- sponse to a court order and the Virginia school-masking law.

Elizabeth Eads, 13, and John King, 10 Every time John King puts on his mask, his glasses fog up. That makes it hard for the 1 0-year-old, who attends elemen- tary school in Virginia Beach City Public Schools, to see the lesson

to speak in support of school mask-wearing now that it was being challenged by the governor. At a meeting in late January, she planned to thank the Loudoun school board for continuing its mask mandate and taking the pandemic seriously. “I wanted to speak from a student perspective, because you don’t hear much of that on the news,” Angela, 18, who wants to pursue a career in social work, said in an interview. “You hear ‘Parents are fighting for this.’ ‘Adults are fighting for this.’ I wanted to make sure a student voice was heard.” On that frigid Tuesday night, hers almost wasn’t. She was barely through her first sentence thanking the school board when a group of mostly White parents in the audience began shouting. She could not make out the words, but she could tell they were disagreeing with her. She heard stabs of laughter. She saw parents hoisting signs into the air, jabbing them toward her. She found herself suddenly unable to read their slogans. Then, she was unable to speak. Tears rose, and she left the room, her speech unfinished. Standing in a bathroom, An- gela sought to calm herself, to remind herself why she was there. She ticked through the reasons that masking is important, pic- turing the small classrooms at her school, Park View High, which she said is overdue for a renova- tion. Social distancing is impossi-

accommodations made in place of mask use” — an apparent refer- ence to the plexiglass — and that students would face “disciplinary action” if they kept attending without face coverings, according to an email shared with The Post. Soon after that, Sam and Andrew caved. Asked about the boys’ account, Henrico schools spokeswoman Eileen Cox wrote in an email that the district “continues to commu- nicate with families regarding mask expectations and our desire to work with individual families to address concerns.” Both teens said they noticed a change in how some people at school treated them. Other students who support masking have stopped speaking to the boys: “They kind of treat us like we’re an embarrassment,” Sam said. Even when both boys again started going to school masked, the social ostracizing has persisted, they said. Sam said he feels stressed about school all the time since Youngkin’s mask-optional order took effect. He said he appreciates Youngkin’s efforts, but he wishes the governor had made the rules more clear, somehow. He wants the adults to stop fighting and just come up with some solutions. Fallout from the masking fra- cas has twice led Sam to stay home from school to protect his mental health. “I’m just like, ‘I can’t deal with this today,’ ” Sam said. “Just don’t go.” “It feels like a very toxic environment,” Andrew said of school. “I don’t look forward to going to school at all anymore because — it’s just day after day after day.” On Thursday, Henrico schools began allowing students to attend class maskless in early obedience to the new Virginia law — and, after their first day of breathing unencumbered, both boys said they were finally feeling better.

Angela Rivera, 18 Angela Rivera knew the dan- gers of speaking at a Loudoun County School Board meeting. She knew that the county, which is extremely wealthy and politi- cally split, has been in the nation- al spotlight for almost two years for its raucous, ongoing educa- tional culture wars. She knew that one charged board meeting last year culminated in an arrest — and that masking is one of the topics that most upsets the con- tingent of mostly White, con- servative parents who share their displeasure during public com- ments at almost every board meeting. But Angela, who is Hispanic and serves as student school board representative, felt she had

her nose. But Elizabeth no longer dares to talk about pandemic safety with most of the maskless students in her grade. Whenever their chats stray near masks — a topic that inevitably leads to politics, the other conversational danger zone at Elizabeth’s school — Elizabeth diverts the conversa- tion, sometimes by asking about the other student’s dog. If the kid doesn’t have a dog, she brings up dogs in general and how wonder- ful they are. There is one boy in particular with whom Elizabeth used to de- bate politics. But something has changed, she said. “At this point, I kind of realize he’s never going to change his mind — he’s just not, because he’s consuming the me- dia that is really right-wing,” she said. “And there’s nothing I can do about it.” If Elizabeth cannot find a way to move the discussion away from masks — especially with this boy — she simply leaves. “I roll my eyes and walk away, because if I get involved, I will get too involved,” she said. Thoughts of Papaw will intrude, she said, and “I will start screaming, or I will start yelling, or I will start crying.” And she doesn’t want her classmates to see her cry.

Caleb Joines, 12 Caleb Joines likes school. His favorite subject is English, because he loves to read — especially graphic novels. But the 12-year-old’s mind has been far from academics recently. That’s because every time he walks through the door of Eliza- beth Davis Middle School in Ches- ter, Va. — where masks are optional — for another day of seventh grade, he is putting his life at risk. “It’s scary” at school since Youngkin’s mask-optional order took effect, he said. “Because I have severe lung issues.” Caleb was born with esopha- geal atresia and tracheoesopha- geal fistula, several long words that mean the pipes Caleb needs to breathe don’t fit together prop- erly. Caleb cannot remember a time when he did not sometimes burst into wheezes, which often led to an asthma attack. He was in and out of hospitals for most of his childhood, his mother said, leading to more lung problems. For a time, Caleb was unable to do most physical activities. Things got better after he started taking allergy shots and using an inhaler — but when the pandemic hit, things got worse. The adults, including Caleb’s parents and doctors, warned him that, as he puts it, “I have a higher risk of passing away” than any of his friends. He can still remember when his mother broke the news to him, early in the pandemic. “She just told me it was a disease or something,” Caleb said of the coronavirus. “And that it could hurt me pretty bad.” Four times since Youngkin made masks optional, Caleb has found himself seated next to a maskless classmate. Every time, he has approached the teacher and quietly asked to be moved. Caleb said he would never bring up his concerns directly to his maskless classmates. He does not think they would understand about his lungs. He does not think they would listen. And even if they did, he doesn’t think they would care enough to start wearing masks again. “They would most likely be rude and say that it’s their and their family’s choice if they’re going to wear masks,” he said. The first time Caleb asked to move, his teacher placed him at an isolated table in the corner. The second time, a different teacher said she wasn’t sure of the rules and had to check with the principal — who came down from his office, took Caleb aside and gave a minutes-long speech about how it would be wrong and against district policy to “segregate” maskless people from mask- wearers. The school eventually agreed to move Caleb, he and his mother said, but it was an embar- rassing, painful ordeal. The third and fourth times, teachers moved him without is- sue. School, Caleb said, now feels scary twice over: First, he is afraid of being seated next to a maskless student. Second, he is afraid of what might happen if he speaks up for himself and asks to be placed in a different seat. But, he said, the former fear will always outweigh the latter — he will keep asking to sit some- where else, no matter how much adult disapproval he has to face, from his teacher or his principal or even the governor of Virginia. “Because I don’t want to end up in the hospital again,” Caleb said. “I don’t want to be hooked up to machines and have to hear people talking about how long they think I have left and stuff like that.”

the real-life fallout.
The Washington Post asked
parents across the state to share
how their children are feeling
about school masking policies,
garnering nearly 200 submis-
sions from families living in at
least 25 school districts.
Some Virginia students were
thrilled to remove their masks —
but their elation quickly soured
when administrators in districts
that still required masking sent
unmasked children into isolated
rooms or back to their homes.
Other students, especially those
with health conditions, were hor-
rified to find themselves seated
next to maskless peers, unable to
do anything except ask to change
seats. All too often, students said,
their teachers deny that request,
citing instructions from higher-
ups not to segregate students by
mask status.
School now feels, Swan said,
“like a war zone”: a raging parti-
san battle that no one can opt out
of, because every single student
arrives with evidence of their pol-
itics — those without masks typi-
cally lean right, she said — written
across their faces. Swan said she
has stopped speaking with stu-
dents who go maskless because
they are dismissive of the decision
to mask and unwilling to hear a
different opinion.
Swan said she cannot wait to
graduate and escape to college,
where she plans to major in musi-
cal theater.
“Before, when masks were all
required, you didn’t — it wasn’t
like you were making a state-
ment,” she said. “This made every-
thing so much worse.”

Sam Sweetser, 17, and
Andrew Kulak, 16

At first, Sam Sweetser and An-
drew Kulak were overjoyed by
Youngkin’s mask-optional order.
The two best friends, who at-
tend Deep Run High School in
Virginia’s Henrico County and
swim together on a competitive
team outside of school, were
ready — more than ready — to rip
off their masks after months of
muffled, sweaty, generally un-
comfortable schooling. Sam re-
turned to in-person schooling as
soon as he could last March, while
Andrew waited to return until
September, put off by the masking
rule.
Sam, a 17-year-old senior, said
mask-wearing makes it hard to
engage meaningfully in class dis-
cussions and socially outside of
class, given that everyone’s voices
and faces are obscured. Andrew, a
16-year-old junior, said his teach-
ers’ masks make it hard to hear
the lesson — while his mask
proves an irritating distraction.
“It definitely makes it difficult
to learn, like you can just feel
everything piling up on your
face,” Andrew said. “It just makes
your face feel thick.”
Both boys said masks also give
them bad acne and irritate the
skin under their chins.
So on Jan. 24, the Monday that
Youngkin’s order went into effect,
the two friends showed up to their
high school blissfully maskless,
even though they knew their dis-
trict, Henrico County Public
Schools, had chosen to defy the
governor’s order. The teens be-
lieve the pandemic has reached
its end, with widespread vaccina-
tions and dropping infection
rates, and it is time for students
who feel better maskless to be
allowed into school without face
coverings.
“We just felt like it was neces-
sary,” Sam said of mask-optional
policies, “and that someone had
to stand up for it.”
Seconds after they walked into
the school building, Sam and An-
drew said, administrators direct-
ed them into an empty auditori-
um with about a dozen other
students who had also come to
school without masks. The boys
remained there for the rest of the
day, supposedly learning asyn-
chronously — meaning they com-
pleted assignments without live
instruction — although both said
they didn’t learn at all.
That persisted for a week.
Eventually the boys were moved
from the auditorium into an emp-
ty classroom “that didn’t have any
lights on,” because staffers never
bothered to turn them on, Sam
said. But they were determined to
prevail. When the two teens kept
showing up maskless for a second
week, officials allowed them back
into their classrooms but erected
plexiglass bubbles around their
desks, making them feel like so-
cial pariahs, the boys said.
“I had a teacher put me in a
corner with plexiglass, and the
sun was glaring off the board and
I couldn’t see anything,” Andrew
said. “So I still wasn’t learning
anything.”
As the standoff threatened to
enter its third week, officials in-
formed maskless students that
the school was ending its “recent

STUDENTS FROM A

Battle over school masks creates ‘very toxic environment’

CAROLYN VAN HOUTEN/THE WASHINGTON POST A discarded mask lies on the ground at Park View High School in Sterling, Va. As student school board representative Angela Rivera, 18, tried to make her case for masks in the district, a group of mostly White parents in the crowd drowned her out.

CAROLYN VAN HOUTEN/THE WASHINGTON POST Andrew Kulak, l eft, and Sam Sweetser felt mask-optional policies at their Henrico County high school were “necessary.”

MARTHA GREENE EADS Elizabeth Eads, r ight, is afraid to spend time with her 91-year- old grandfather during the pandemic because of his poor health.

CAROLYN VAN HOUTEN/THE WASHINGTON POST Caleb Joines, 12, has chronic lung issues and says school is “scary” while masks are optional for his classmates.

The Washington Post - USA (2022-02-20)

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