Board removes state rep for refusing to wear a mask
A Republican lawmaker from northeast Ohio says he was escorted out of a school board meeting in his district after he refused to wear a mask.
“As a healthy individual, a leader and representative, I would have looked hypocritical for wearing one and will never bow down to their ridiculous mandates,” Rep. Mike Loychik, R-bazetta, wrote in a Facebook post Monday night.
When asked to confirm his story, Lakeview Local School District Superintendent Velina Taylor said Loychik wore a mask to get into the meeting and then took it off. Staff asked him to leave when he refused to put the mask back on his face.
The northeast Ohio district requires masks for all students and staff regardless of their vaccination status during all indoor activities including school board meetings.
“I think most of the accepted medical sources including the Ohio Department of Health, the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), our local health board are all saying the same thing,” Taylor said. “When you are in an indoor setting you should be wearing a mask. That’s the protocol that we have in our district.”
And she says it’s working. No Lakeview students have been sent home to quarantine since the school year started.
Loychik wrote that his “mission was to speak about making masks optional” and promised to work against the board members up for re-election in November. He also co-sponsored a bill to prohibit schools from requiring masks for students.
Loychik, who has two small children of his own, isn’t the first person to be removed from a school board meeting in Ohio. Tensions over masking, social distancing and vaccinations have grown alongside the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I expect it will happen again,” Taylor said.
Anna Staver is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.