The Guardian (USA)

Masks off: how US school boards became ‘perfect battlegrou­nds’ for vicious culture wars

- Julia Carrie Wong

Rina Gallien doesn’t consider herself political, but when the 41-yearold mother of four heard that parents who oppose mask mandates in schools were organizing to attend the 12 August meeting of the St Tammany parish school board in Slidell, Louisiana, she took time off work to attend.

“I didn’t want them to think that they are the only people who care about their kids,” said Gallien, who has three children still in school and strongly supports the mask mandate reinstated by the state’s governor amid soaring Covid-19 cases in early August. “I care about my kids too, and I want them to come home safe.”

Still, Gallien was not prepared for the experience of attending a school board meeting in St Tammany, a rural parish that is significan­tly whiter, richer and more conservati­ve than nearby New Orleans. “I didn’t know it was going to be like that,” she said. “When I pulled into the parking lot, it was a Trump rally.”

Dozens of parents, dressed in red to “demonstrat­e their anger”, according to the local paper, stood outside the school, holding signs with slogans such as “My Child, My Choice” and “Unmask Our Children”. Shouting matches broke out between the pro- and anti-mask camps as law enforcemen­t officers attempted to keep the sides separate. One man told Gallien, who is Black, to “go back where you came from”.

The tense standoff in Slidell is just one of dozens that have unfolded at local school board meetings across the US in recent weeks as schools debate how to return to in-person instructio­n amid the resurgent threat of the Delta variant.From Anchorage, Alaska, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, school board meetings have become the stage for the latest act in America’s culture wars over education, one with roots in the country’s deep racial and political divisions.

“School boards are a uniquely vulnerable spot in the culture war landscape, because they’re open to everyone and they’re not really prepared for it,” said Adam Laats, a Binghamton University professor who studies the history of education in the US. “You can go down to the meeting at 7.30pm on Thursday and yell at someone rather than just feeling adrift in a changing culture.”

Many meetings have been disrupted or even cancelled. In Bend, Oregon, proceeding­s had to be put on hold twice in two weeks, as angry parents shouted at school board members and heckled a Spanish-language translator. The school board in Clarkstown, New York, cancelled its 12 August meeting when members of the public refused to don masks. On the same day, the school board serving the affluent communitie­s of the Palos Verdes peninsula near Los Angeles walked out when 100 protesters affiliated with the antimask group Let Them Breathe also refused to wear face coverings; the board members reconvened the meeting from their homes, on Zoom.

Others have gone even further. In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a man wearing a T-shirt that read “Not Vaccinated” poured lighter fluid on a tray full of masks and set it on fire. After the school board approved a mask mandate for a community near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvan­ia, on 9 August, one man stood and performed a Nazi salute, while another shouted, “You made Dr Mengele proud,” referencin­g the Nazi torturer and murderer.

One of the most chilling scenes occurred in Williamson county, Tennessee, just south of Nashville, where hundreds of parents protested in the parking lot outside the building where the school board on 10 August approved a temporary mask mandate for elementary schools. Video captured the crowd menacing a departing parent who had spoken in favor of masks.

“We know who you are. You can leave freely, but we will find you,” said one of the protesters.

“You will never be allowed in public again,” said another.

When the board reconvened for a special meeting on 16 August, law enforcemen­t used handheld metal detectors to scan the audience, a first for a school board meeting in the district.

This level of engagement with and anger about the policies set by the country’s more than 13,000 local school boards is unpreceden­ted, said Chip Slaven, the interim executive direction of the National School Boards Associatio­n. While school policies have long garnered intense local interest, this degree of sustained scrutiny of school boards across the country is new.

“Before this, a controvers­ial school board meeting might be concern over hiring a superinten­dent, consolidat­ing schools, or something related to the sports teams,” he said. “Those were the kinds of things where you might have a crowd.”

Now, however, “school board members are under attack in a number of ways,” said Slaven, including by angry parents at meetings, threatenin­g trolls online and politicize­d recall elections. “There are even a couple governors making threats,” he said. Earlier this month, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, threatened to withhold the salaries of school board members who defied his ban on mask mandates in schools, though he later acknowledg­ed that he lacked the legal authority to do so. On 11 August, the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, threatened to sue school districts or officials who did the same.

“After 9/11, did a governor intervene to stop a local official from taking steps to safeguard a public meeting?” Slaven asked. “We have 600,000 people that have died as a result of this pandemic, so you need to let local officials make these decisions that will protect people.”

School board members are typically unpaid community members who get involved to try to improve their local schools, Slaven noted. They are generally elected in non-partisan elections and oversee issues such as the budget and districts.

Many school boards have had to address crises in the past, such as recovering after a natural disaster or adopting new security practices after the attacks of September 11 2001, but most have never had to deal with anything

 ?? Photograph: Robin Rayne/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shuttersto­ck ?? People demonstrat­e against mask mandates at a Cobb county, Georgia, school board meeting last week.
Photograph: Robin Rayne/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shuttersto­ck People demonstrat­e against mask mandates at a Cobb county, Georgia, school board meeting last week.
 ?? Lavandier/AP ?? People cheer as they listen to a Broward school board emergency meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Photograph: Marta
Lavandier/AP People cheer as they listen to a Broward school board emergency meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Photograph: Marta

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