Coalition calls for mask mandate in schools
On a record- high day of reported COVID-19 cases in Oklahoma, a new coalition of doctors, teachers and child advocates have called for state leaders to require masks in public schools.
A group of prominent state organizations, adopting the name Masks Are Saving Kids, or MASK, urged the Oklahoma State Board of Education to implement a statewide school mandate.
The coalition hosted a news conference Friday, the same day state health officials reported a record single- day increase in new COVID-19 cases with 2,101. Hospitalizations surpassed 1,000 for the first time this week for suspected and confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Stillwater pediatrician Dr. Dwight Sublett said a school mask mandate is “imperative” as hospital space dwindles. Sublett is the president of the Oklahoma chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, a group of over 400 pediatricians in the state.
“It is purely and simply a matter of public health, and we need to take this extremely seriously,” Sublett said. “We will save lives if we can get this policy adopted.”
The pediatricians' group
joined the state's largest teacher union, the Oklahoma Education Association, along with the state Parent-Teacher Association, the Oklahoma State Medical Association and the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy to create the MASK Coalition.
Former Democratic legislator Joe Dorman is CEO of the child advocacy institute, the same organization that put up billboards and started an online petition last week for a school mask mandate.
The state school board voted 4-3 on July 23 to recommend, but not require, safety precautions for schools in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The package of school safety measures included a proposal to mandate face coverings for all students and staff once their home county reaches Yellow Level — 1.43 cases per 100,000 people — in the state's COVID-19 Alert System.
Dorman said he feels confident the coalition could convince at least one more board member to support a mask requirement. Five of the seven board members were appointed by Gov. Kevin Stitt, who has resisted calls for a statewide mask mandate throughout the pandemic.
“I know a couple of ( the board members) personally, a couple of the no votes personally,” Dorman said. “I understand why they did this. There's a lot of pressure out there. There are individuals who do not want to be told what to do.
“Sometimes being in a leadership role demands making a tough decision and acting responsibly for the health and well-being of the state and the nation.”
Championing personal choice, Stitt has said a state mask requirement is something “I, personally, don't believe in.”
Yet, Stitt and state medical officials have said masks work in curbing the spread of COVID-19. Cases grew by 81% in areas without a mask mandate but only by 21% in areas with a mask ordinance in the same three- month period, according to an Oct. 30 state epidemiology report.
State schools Superintendent Joy Hofmeister voted in favor of requiring masks and other safety measures in schools. She appealed for a greater commitment to mask wearing in an editorial in The Oklahoman this week.
“To ensure our children can continue learning where we know they do it best — in the company of their teachers and peers — I urge you to make your voice heard,” Hofmeister wrote. “If an adequate mask requirement is not already in place, let your school board representative know you and your children deserve this protection.”
More than a third of Oklahoma districts started the school year with no requirements for any students or staff to wear masks, according to an informal survey by the state Education Department.
Sublett said research has shown children less often suffer from severe COVID-19 symptoms than adults, but children could spread the virus to others.
Oklahoma PTA President Alison Taylor said she fears for vulnerable caretakers, such as grandparents and those with compromised immune systems, whose children come home each day from schools without a mask mandate. Nearly 80,000 Oklahoma children live in a grandparent's home, according to 2010 U.S. Census data.
Superintendent Cecilia Robinson- Woods said masks are mandatory for pre-K through 12th grade in Millwood Public Schools, an east Oklahoma City district in a predominantly African American community.
“We know from state statistics that this disease affects people of color at disproportionate rates,” Robinson-Woods said at the news conference. “That's of grave concern to us. Opening the doors at Millwood was very important, but not without a mask mandate.”
White Oklahomans make up 74% of the state's population but only 58% of the state's COVID-19 cases, according to data from the state Health Department.
Schools must stay open, said Chris Brewster, superintendent of Santa Fe South Schools. He said lengthy school closures will be “catastrophic” for low-income districts where students are already behind.
“COVID affected the medically fragile, but it also affects the economically fragile and in our case the academically fragile,” Brewster said. “None of us are safe, but we know we can slow it and control it when we wear masks.”