More than 100 Seattle Public Schools students walked out of class Monday morning to protest the district’s decision to end the requirement that students and staff wear masks.
Many of those students rallied at district headquarters, the John Stanford Center, to ask Superintendent Brent Jones to reinstate the mask mandate districtwide. Mask requirements for Seattle and most other districts in the state ended a week ago.
The newly formed Seattle Student Union, a group of student activists who organized the rally, have been demanding stronger safety protocols since January, including that the district provide higher quality masks. The student union has been threatening a walkout since Gov. Jay Inslee announced plans to end mask requirements in schools, child care facilities and most other businesses.
The student union sent the school board and Jones a letter last week asking for mask requirements to continue.
“Every time we try to get hasty and toss our masks off, we have another spike and another thousand people die,” said Eridon Stewart, a 17-year-old senior at Nova High School who spoke at the rally. Stewart said her mother has asthma, and could die if she caught the virus. Other students also talked about the threat COVID-19 poses to family members who are immunocompromised.
Jones’ announcement that masks were optional also rattled the teachers union, which has been pushing back on the district’s decision as well. The student walkout follows a rally the Seattle Education Association held Friday. The teachers union called on the district to fix strained relationships by including teachers and students in decision making.
SEA claims the district violated a memorandum of understanding when mask requirements ended without bargaining. Union officials said the district had promised to bargain over it first.
In a statement released Monday and signed by Bev Redmond, assistant superintendent of public affairs, the district noted that its decision to no longer require masks aligns with recent guidance from the state Department of Health and Public Health — Seattle & King County. “We also realize that Gov. Jay Inslee’s March 12 lifting of the masking mandate came fast for some and without an extended time for adjustment,” the statement read. “Understandably, there are many different beliefs, opinions, reasons, and comfort levels around this decision.”
The statement said the district “supports student voice” and will help students “with reassurance, empathy, and respect for the personal choice to mask or not.”
The union is standing in solidarity with students who are walking out.
“We watched as students in our classrooms grappled with the implications of this change on their lives and the lives of their families and friends who are immunocompromised or unvaccinated,” said a statement from SEA. “Students were not given any voice in this change or how it would be implemented.”
Students need to be listened to and administrators and board members should address their demands, SEA officials said.
“What our students are feeling is a direct result of how our system is failing,” the statement said.
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Now you see how the government ensnares people. These people are rejecting freedom of choice for a government mandate.
This is not good.
A great opportunity to round up all the sheep at once into a Cattle trailer to be shipped to the Orwellian “Animal Farm” for socialist safe keeping. Just call them the Young Democrats for Sheep Shearing movement, who when they graduate from their Lying Liberal scholastic institutions of social dependency indoctrination, do upon graduation get issued sheepskins to signify that the wool has been pulled over their eyes,,,,, and can also be used to cover their intellectual nakedness.
Call them the Young Democrats for Mass Formation Hysteria.
IF they wanna wear masks forever, fine.. SUPERGLUE THE SUCKERS to their faces….
Stupid Kids . If ANYONE things the mask will protect you ,then wear one. If I don’t want the mask, which has been proven useless, I will not wear it.
It’s called the great student mask Skedaddle in Seattle. When in doubt they just walk out, forget trying to get the true answers.
seattle is lost to the communist.
“Brainless in Seattle”…..
Parents And teachers; tell the teachers union to go pound sand, But then, that would require them to do some REAL work, and they wouldn’t like that.
Please control me and tell me how to live my life !
hmmm. That goes all the way back to that limp wrist millionaire who begged Obama to “Please, Mr. Obama, raise my taxes.”
Said by no real millionaire ever.
But in the years since, more propaganda and lies by the left has reduced an entire generation to simpering sycophants and capitulators who tow the liberal hive mind.
Please abuse us. Please reduce our freedoms. Please risk our sovereignty because we are too full of ourselves and don’t deserve to be successful and in control of freedom and justice in the world.
Uh, Yeah. We do deserve to be a beacon of light in the world, because after thousands of years of trial and error, made more difficult by the individuals who felt they were more important than their people or any body any where in the world, somehow We seemed to get it right, and have been able to make a society that gave every one of its citizens a chance to aspire to their greatest potential.
And for the four years Trump was in office, we once again lived up to that potential.
Showing it is still achievable, if pressed by someone who really believes it.
IF they wanna be under a tyrannical govt. SHIP THEM ALL to russia, or better yet, North korea!
This is like a 50s horror movie – Blank faced zombies strolling in the streets with silly useless masks. The collectivists are turning younger people into obedient sheep without any ability to think critically. Fortunately this cancer is primarily located in Seattle and surrounding areas. It is possible to treat it before metastasis is in the entire country.
Notify their parents that they have skipped school. Then go to court and have the judge impose a daily fine for parents who allow their children to stay home without a legitimate reason. Claiming sickness naturally be allowed, and the fines suspended upon receipt of a note from a legitimate Dr. Then warn the Drs they may be required to testify under oath that the child was actually sick and could not attend, subject to the laws covering perjury. The charges will not be combined, and each note will be treated as a separate perjury charge.
SINCE this is in seattlistan, you can BET THE JUDGES there will wuss out on applying ANY of those penalties…
The kids aren’t learning anything anyway so it’s no loss the walk out of school.
YET Taxes for schools most likely went UP..
They’ve been indoctrinated. I seriously hope I’m dead or raptured soon, I don’t think I can handle much more.