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Don’t Experiment with Kids: Wear Your Mask to School

The Meade County school board still can’t pull the trigger on a mask mandate for its teachers and students. With board member Tracy Konst complaining that “We’re South Dakotans and we don’t like [being] told what to do,” the board put off a final decision on whether to start in Phase Green (masks strongly recommended) or Phase Orange (masks required) until a special meeting on August 31.

We can only hope that, in the intervening days, the wisdom of board member Charlie Wheeler sinks into a few more heads:

Board member Charlie Wheeler said he didn’t understand why it was under such discussion. He said he wears a mask so others don’t catch his germs.

He also said he received emails or notes from multiple teachers about their personal medical history, which they are not required to disclose, to point out how important it is to them that the board vote to require masks in the classroom.

“It is very disheartening to see that swept aside because we don’t see consistency,” Wheeler said. “The problem is we have state and national leaders that don’t want to test, they don’t want to report, they don’t want reports to go to the CDC, yet we’re asked to do this great experiment with out staff and our students…and we can’t do something as simple as wearing masks” [Siandhara Bonnet, “Meade School Board Makes Final Decision on Back-to-School Plan,” Rapid City Journal, 2020.08.18].

School boards tell administrators, teachers, and students what to do all the time, and for far less reason than the pressing need to suppress a pandemic and hasten our ability to return to more normal educational and economic activity. Listen to Charlie Wheeler: do your part, and wear your mask to school.

12 Comments

  1. John Kennedy Claussen, Sr.,

    For those who don’t like being told what to do, do they plan to start going to restaurants with no shirts and/or shoes, too?

    Also, if these same people happen upon a car wreck in the future, that police have roped off, do they plan to just drive right through the yellow tape and carnage?

    And what about the military draft? Although, dormant at this time, if ever invoked, do these conservative libertarians suggest people ignore the draft?

    Oh, and what about surgery. If any of these non-maskers should have surgery in the future (heaven forbid), do they suggest the doctors and nurses need not wear masks without any ramifications?

  2. mike from iowa

    Latest update on drumpf’s body count reaches new heights….

    United States
    Coronavirus Cases:
    5,626,555
    Deaths:
    174,248

    In wingnuts rush to kill people to save the economy, they are killing people by the more and more.

  3. o

    For the boards that seem to want to allow teachers (and students) this new expanded freedom to do as they please when at school, I cannot help but wonder how far this new-found freedom goes. Do these teachers also have the “freedom” to teach what THEY deem necessary to their students? Do they have the “freedom” to ignore state-mandated testing (when it is reinstated)? If endangering the health and safety of others is OK, is spanking back on the table?

  4. Donald Pay

    That Tracy Konst quote is a response you might hear from a 2nd grader. I imagine students trying to pull that one when the teacher wants students to line up from recess. Some smartass kid says, “We’re South Dakotans and we don’t like being told what to do.” How did s second grader get on the school board.

  5. jerry

    Probably was a patron at One Eyed Jacks. Let’s do the math like a second grader. Today is the 18th so if you take the 11th from the 18th…wait now, gotta eat some paste…okay then, That would be 7. So here we are 7 days from the patron’s contamination and we wonder how many people were impacted. We will never make to the third grade at this rate. Flunked again.

    “A patron of the One-Eyed Jack’s Saloon at 1304 Main Street in Sturgis has tested positive for COVID-19, the South Dakota Department of Health announced Tuesday.

    The individual visited the business while able to transmit the virus to others on August 11 from 12 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

    The DOH said that due to the risk of exposure, individuals that visited the business during the specified dates and times should monitor for symptoms for 14 days after they visited.” Rapid City Journal 8.18.20

  6. leslie

    Great juxtaposition calling out the lack of foundation on one side, Cory. How did we get here, as Charlie grumbled?

    The same thing happened with unelected Tea Party wing nuts gaining a majority on the West Dakota Water Development Board in the last few years (the same vital board that after the late 80s-several year drought shockingly pulled down Pactola levels 55’) commissioned thorough study of all aspects of Black Hills water supply/quality. Until Wing -Nut terms ran out, screeds similar to Meade School Board’s unthinking demagoguery were aired month after month.

    “We don’t like to be told what to do?” Surely there was more. But what kind of maturity does that represent on an elected public service board?? Not common sense.

    Look where we have come from just this year:

    Jan 30-Headline: “Republicans move to block impeachment witnesses”

    GOP leaders appear to have corralled support to prevent new witnesses from testifying in the impeachment trial, which would pave the way for a swift acquittal of President Trump. THE NEW YORK TIMES
    The vote over admitting new evidence is expected tomorrow, and there could still be surprises. Senators have eight more hours today to question the prosecution and defense teams.
“

    Drama. Last minute chaos. If you watched you heard similar empty slogans. “That”ll teach him [Trump] a lesson.” Sen Susan Collins

    January 30, 2020- Bloomberg Headline: “Confirmed cases top 7,700 and deaths rise to 170 nationally”. Meanwhile officials world wide are battling misinformation about the virus on social media.

    Trump’s USPostmaster General last week notified 46 states: “Can’t deliver ballots in time to be counted!” This week. “No problem!” after House scheduled Friday oversight hearing!

    Drama. Last minute chaos of Trump/GOP delivering mass, calculated deception and confusion, no matter rain, sleet or shine. JFC

    AND OF COURSE:

    mfi-Today: 5,627,000 cases. 175,000 deaths. But “we [South Dakotan’s] do not like to be told what to do.”

  7. O, I don’t like teachers and professors being told not to collectively bargain.

    I don’t like being told to mow my grass.

    I don’t like being told I can’t put campaign signs in my yard until September (especially when Trumpist knuckleheads get to flout that city ordinance by flying their Trump rags from their flagpoles).

    I don’t like my daughter being told she has to take standardized tests.

    I don’t like teachers being told to teach to those standardized tests.

    I don’t like school boards telling teachers to keep their doors closed all day out of fear that someone will walk in and start shooting.

    Anyone who serves in elected office who believes people shouldn’t be told what to do should resign immediately, because the inherent nature of an elected position is to identify those actions that citizens must be directed to take and to enforce those directions. If you’re not going to think hard, discuss copiously, and come up with the most fitting things to tell everyone to do for the good of the community, you have no business serving in elected office. If you don’t want anyone telling you what to do, don’t run for office; propose a ballot measure to disband the government, repeal the Constitution, and return to the state of nature.

  8. Debbo

    I think she meant to say, “You’re not the boss of me!” 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

  9. jerry

    Higher education is like second graders, we’uns is dumb, real dumb.

    “SPEARFISH | More than 100 rally-goers stayed in three dorms at Black Hills State University and checked out Aug. 10, four days before an employee at BHSU tested positive after working in the student union.

    Early move-in for students also began that same day, with regular move-in on the following days. The rally-goers checked out a week before the state health department reported three cases on campus and nine days before classes resumed Wednesday.

    Corinne Hansen, director of university and community relations, said BHSU has a “long history of providing housing” for rally-goers. Hansen said approximately 110 rally guests stayed in Bordeaux, Heidepriem and Thomas halls, which are connected.”

    Just when you think South Dakota schools couldn’t possibly do anything stupid in a pandemic, behold, we did it and the school is so damn ignorant, they think it’s cool because they did it in the past. These boneheads are a bad joke.

  10. Debbo

    {stunned head slap}

  11. DaveFN

    Tracy Konst complaining that “We’re South Dakotans and we don’t like [being] told what to do” is for all I know one of any number of dolts who think it’s beneath him to follow the one-way signs on the floor at Walmart.

  12. Jake

    I’m sure Tracy Konst drives way over the speed limits posted in town and on the highway while not wearing a seat-belt and with both tail-lights and stop lights on the rear of car not working, or even using traffic signals when turning. Such stupidity has no place on a school board or any other board of citizens elected by the public. This shows a mentality of minimum capacity of service to the community needing to be replaced…

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