Parents complain about masks to school boards

At the very least, a small number of parents and grandparents in the Whitley County School District and the Corbin Independent School District want the practice of masking students ended.

Justin McIntire recently addressed the Whitley County Board of Education encouraging them to do away with student masks.

During the Whitley County Board of Education’s monthly meeting Thursday, Justin McIntire, who is the father of three children that attend Whitley County schools, spoke out against masking in schools on behalf of about five or six parents or grandparents, who were present at the meeting.

He read a letter reportedly signed parents and grandparents of Whitley County students during the meeting that states as follows.

“You are masking children even though there is zero evidence that children are at a significant risk of catching or dying from the Chinese corona virus. In fact, children who drive to school are at a larger risk of dying on the way to school than from Covid-19, according to the CDC (Center for Disease Control).”

“The CDC research says the following: children 5-14 years old have a 0.2 chance of dying from covid. Yet from all deaths; suicide is 1.5, homicide 0.7, cardiovascular disease 0.6, drowning 0.5, flu and pneumonia 0.3, suffocations and pneumonia are the exact same measure. Masking has a serious mental health toll on young people. The inability to communicate, in fact masking makes you less likely to be able to empathize with another person. God gave us a face for a reason.”

“Dr. Mackery wrote a piece in which he studied 48,000 cases of children under 18 reported to have Covid between April and August of last year. How many children died? He said quote ‘our report found a mortality rate of ZERO found among children without a preexisting medical condition, such as leukemia.’ So why the mask craziness?”

“There was a 22.3 percent spike in ER trips for potential suicide by children ages 12 to 17 in summer 2020 compared to 2019, according to findings published in the CDC’s morbidity and mortality weekly report, and we know there is a direct link between children not being able to empathize with their peers and their parents and mental health issues.”

“So, we are imploring you to stand with the real Science and freedom and unmask all children. The adults that wish to wear a mask can certainly still do so or vaccinate if they so choose, but let’s not instill this unfounded fear in our children. Please do you own research.”

Board Chairwoman Brenda Hill thanked McIntire and the others in attendance for their input, but noted there are also a great deal of people, who want masks, and asked if McIntire would be in favor of sending out surveys to parents about the issue.

The second time she asked about whether he would be in favor of sending out surveys to parents McIntire replied that he doesn’t have a problem with sending out surveys, but he thinks the people, who want to wear a mask should be allowed to do so, and the people, who don’t want to wear a mask shouldn’t have to.

McIntire added that the masking issue has nothing to do with safety, but instead it is about freedom, liberty and compliance.

“It is not going to end until they get total control,” McIntire noted.

During Thursday’s monthly Corbin Independent Board of Education meeting, that board heard from a different parent regarding their feelings about masking requirements in schools.

Corbin parent Melinda Fox, who has two sons that attend the Corbin schools, read off the back of a box of cloth masks noting, “They do not provide any protection against COVID–19.”

She later quoted Dr. Anthony Fauci noting that, “Wearing a mask may make people feel better, not providing perfect protection.”

Fox added that there can be unintended consequences from handling masks, and encouraged the board to do away with the mask mandate.

At the time of both meetings, neither school board had the authority to make any changes to the masking requirement, which had been mandated by the Kentucky Board of Education. That has since changed thanks to the actions of the Kentucky General Assembly, which has placed the mask issue in the hands of hands of local school districts.

Currently both school districts are keeping their mask mandates in place, but the Corbin school board has said it will revisit the issue at next month’s meeting.