Masks in schools? Stanislaus supervisors won’t take meaningless vote, after all
Stanislaus County officials can be proud they didn’t bow to unwise parents and educators demanding that children less than 12 not be required to wear masks in local classrooms when school starts up soon.
Passionate people packing the Board of Supervisors’ chamber a couple of weeks ago might have gone away thinking they accomplished something, if they thought they had persuaded supervisors to take up a “healthy kids resolution” at supervisors’ next meeting coming up Tuesday.
They didn’t, and they won’t, County Chief Executive Officer Jody Hayes told me in a carefully worded phone call Friday afternoon.
Supervisors will hear an update on the county’s COVID-19 situation, presumably including info on the recent upswing in cases and hospitalizations driven by a sobering surge in the Delta variant.
And anyone — science deniers, antivaxxers and mask opponents included — can speak during the open-mic “public comment” portion. You can bet there will be some of the same crowd from two weeks ago on hand again Tuesday.
But no masks-in-schools resolution appears on the agenda.
That’s a good thing on various levels.
Sending such a resolution to state officials would be entirely moot. First, supervisors have no authority over schools. Second, state leaders already have said local school districts can decide how they want to enforce the state’s requirement that pupils less than 12 wear masks indoors — the exact aim of a “healthy kids resolution.” Third, some local school districts already have said they intend to follow public health directives regardless of undue pressure from county supervisors.
Supervisors – having lost 1,085 of our neighbors to COVID so far – should spend their time on policy and issues that matter and not on meaningless charades to score political points.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recently advised that all children over 2 wear masks in class. As our editorial board recently said, it’s simply not conceivable that the nation’s leading group of pediatricians know less about what’s good for children than Stanislaus supervisors or a vocal minority in their chamber.
Spotty Stanislaus history
Our supervisors’ worst stumble in the coronavirus pandemic was an early vote to look the other way should businesses defy public health guidelines. A few months and a hundreds of local deaths later, a majority on the board wised up and narrowly rejected Supervisor Terry Withrow’s grandstanding idea to defy a then-state order keeping schools closed until it was safe to open them.
Since then, the five-member board has welcomed three new members: Supervisors Channce Condit, Buck Condit and Mani Grewal. The board no longer tilts strongly to the right.
Many years ago, former County CEO Reagan Wilson told me his strength was knowing how to count to three. That’s a reflection of how many supervisors’ votes it takes to get anything done.
Thankfully, Hayes and Public Health Officer Julie Vaishampayan this time are smart enough to keep our board from embarrassing itself with empty and counterproductive action.
They know how to count to three.
