CT students protest at Capitol over school masks
The protest came as Gov. Ned Lamont announced this week that he is recommending the statewide school mask mandate end Feb. 28.
HARTFORD — A group of about a dozen suburban children and their parents held a small anti-mask protest outside the State Capitol Wednesday morning as lawmakers arrived for the first day of the 12week legislative session.
A small footprint on the site of last year’s protest of thousands of people opposed to vaccine and mask mandates, the school students complained about being disrespected and disciplined by teachers in an atmosphere that has prevented them from learning, socializing and even seeing the facial expressions of their fellow students.
The protest came as Gov. Ned Lamont announced this week that he is recommending the statewide school mask mandate end Feb. 28. As his emergency powers end Feb. 15, Lamont has asked the state legislature to extend the mandate until the end of the month before transitioning authority to local school leaders to set their own mask rules.
The change occurs as the state’s COVID metrics have been trending downward. On Wednesday, the state reported a daily positivity rate of 5.16 percent with 1,048 new COVID infections found in 20,325 tests. Hospitalizations continued to decline with 55 fewer patients for a total of 552, the lowest patient tally in weeks.
As the House of Representatives and the Senate are expected to vote in the coming days on school masks and other Lamont executive orders the governor is seeking to have extended, a group of students gathered Wednesday as lawmakers arrived for the legislative session.
Alexios Selearis, 10, a Hamden fifth-grader, recalled that the greetings of teachers have changed since the start of the pandemic.
“Back then, I truly felt like they cared,” Selearis shouted from a podium on the north steps of the Capitol. “They cared about starting a child’s day off with a warm smile in a friendly environment. Now, somebody else is there. Instead of a warm smile, I’m greeted with, ‘You’ve gotta mask,’ or ‘fix your mask,’ or ‘sanitize your hands.’ I don’t get asked about how I’m doing anymore. I don’t get any of those warm greetings.”
The eight students came from towns including West Hartford, Bristol, Montville and Killingly.
Eight school children organized by Lucas Johnson, a Griswold High School senior, charged that the mental health of many students are being adversely affected by the continual mask requirement.
“The COVID mitigation tactics in school, particularly the mask mandate, have been detrimental and harmful to the mental health of students across the state,” Johnson said, stressing that it was an “independent” protest. “Kids are being hurt every day and it needs to end now. The mitigation tactics that we have in schools have stifled opportunity for students across the state.”
Annabelle Miner, a high school senior in Bristol, said that although she has a medical exemption allowing her not to wear a mask, she has often been confronted about not having one on.
The U.S. Surgeon General last year reported that mental-health issues among youths rose sharply between 2009 and 2019. But there is little data available on the extent of stress that masks might create in school populations.
The protest from students comes a day after a legislative forum on Lamont’s request to extend a small number of executive orders was dominated by a discussion on school masks.
Hundreds signed up to speak during the forum, many of whom were visibly angry parents who opposed the mask mandate for students and teachers.
State officials have long defended the school mask mandate as a keystone of their effort to keep schools open during the pandemic, but with waning infections and hospitalizations, they said now is the time for a more focused effort led by local school boards.
Dr. Manisha Juthani, commissioner of the Department of Public Health, said the agency will continue to provide guidance to school districts on best practices to keep children safe, but would no longer mandate certain protocols, including masking.
When asked by lawmakers at the forum, Juthani said there were no concrete metrics the state would follow to change course with plans over school masking, but she said she was still closely following hospitalizations, which remain high from a recent surge brought on by the omicron variant.
Juthani urged local leaders to monitor infections and the vaccination rate in their communities to determine if they should extend school masking.