Protests ease as Oakdale Joint Unified tells unmasked 7th-12th graders to stay home
Protests at Oakdale schools eased Monday following the district’s announcement that unmasked secondary students would be barred from campus buildings and referred to independent study.
Seventy-three students in Oakdale Joint Unified School District missed school Monday in connection with protests against masks, according to Superintendent Dave Kline.
Over 340 students refused to wear masks last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and 40 to 50 of those students protested in front of the district office, Kline said. Parents protested at schools and the district office last week, too. The superintendent reported no protests in front of schools or the district office on Monday.
The protests and threats that followed reflect the vitriol public officials receive for instituting COVID-19 safety measures. The district postponed a school board meeting scheduled for Monday night due to safety concerns arising from emails, calls and in-person interactions, according to Kline.
In interviews with The Modesto Bee, parents of students who continue to wear masks for various reasons have described a fear of retaliation if they speak out against the protests.
Adults have connected the protests to a photo of Gov. Gavin Newsom not wearing a mask at an NFC championship football game.
Kline received a letter from a lawyer on behalf of Let Them Breathe, a Southern California-based nonprofit organization that opposes COVID-19 safety mandates and calls itself “pro-science, pro-safety, pro-smiles.” The letter said the group is “prepared to provide legal support” for students who don’t wear masks and claims school districts “are under no obligation to enforce” the mask mandate “ by excluding children from in-person instruction, whether by means of expulsion, suspension, or forced enrollment in an independent study program.”
A lawsuit the group filed against state officials over the school mask mandate was dismissed in November.
The district is “legally bound to uphold the mandate,” Kline wrote in a letter sent to families Sunday. He said the district could lose its insurance coverage on COVID-19 issues and face financial penalties from Cal-OSHA if it stopped complying with the mask mandate.
Independent study enrollment up a bit
Oakdale Joint Unified initially provided all protesting students with spaces to complete their schoolwork unmasked. But the protests turned disruptive, including dozens of Oakdale High students leaving the school gym without permission to protest at the district office.
Th disruption led the district to stop offering alternative settings for secondary students and instead ask unmasked students to enroll in independent study, Kline said.
Enrollment numbers from Friday through Tuesday morning indicated one elementary school student, three junior high school students and five high school students signed up for independent study, according to Kline. Independent study numbers have increased since students returned from winter break in January, he said.
The district still is temporarily providing alternate settings for elementary school students to do schoolwork unmasked, according to Kline.
A first-grader who had previously protested arrived to school without a mask Monday and asked his teacher for a mask so that he could stay in class, Kline said in an email. The student asked the teacher to not tell his mom, Kline said.
Another first-grader drew a picture of a frowning face and wrote “me today” above it while sitting in the protest area, according to Kline. Five additional, smaller frowning faces are seen in the drawing.
California’s mask requirement for vaccinated people in most indoor settings will end Feb. 15, The Sacramento Bee reported. Newsom’s administration is expected to announce updates to school mask rules soon, chief strategist Anthony York told The Sacramento Bee.
Other blue states including New Jersey, Oregon, Connecticut and Delaware announced Monday that school mask mandates would lift by the end of February or in March.
This story was originally published February 8, 2022 at 10:57 AM.
