Burning the midnight oil

 By James Hanlon
Leader Staff Writer
Citizens unhappy with the Oakland County Health Division’s school mask mandate waited two and a half hours until the end of the Sept. 14 Oxford School Board meeting inside the high school auditorium to voice their concerns during unscheduled audience participation. Close to 100 people were in attendance, including district staff.
29 people spoke against the mask mandate. No one spoke in favor of the mandate, although some have spoken in favor of masks at previous board meetings. One other person made an unrelated comment on curriculum presentations from earlier that evening.
Public comment began after a short recess at about 9 p.m. School Board President Tom Donnelly spoke first, clarifying a few things on behalf of the board, before opening it up to the public.

“We are the same board that worked hard to make sure that we were one of two districts in Oakland County to remain open and have in-class education all last year,” Donnelly said. “We are the same board that all summer long was asking Oakland County health department for some type of dialogue. . . I need you to know that at 3:30 the day before school started, we finally heard from them. We were in shock as you were as to the timing.” The OCHD mandate was announced Aug. 24, the day before school started in Oxford.
Donnelly laid out three things the district’s attorneys said could happen if the board defied the emergency order.
First, as long as the district follows state and county directives, any related lawsuits would be sent to the state or county level. But, if the district defied the order, they would lose that legal immunity, and would be vulnerable to lawsuits.
Second, the district could be fined for noncompliance.
And lastly, the schools could be shut down. For the board, that was “unacceptable because that defies our number one objective, which is to make sure kids are in school.”
The district is adhering to the mandate, just as it did with all other rules and restrictions over the last 18 months.
The district did not create the mandate, it is simply adhering to it, just as it did with all other rules and restrictions over the last 18 months, Donnelly said. “Ultimately, I’m telling you, if you have skin in the game, it’s not with the school board, it’s with those who make mandates.”
Each person had five minutes to address the board. Many who commented asked the board to do more to stand up to the county, by advocating louder, suing the county or openly defying the mandate.
It wasn’t just adults who spoke. Some students attended and spoke alongside their parents.
“I think I could probably speak for 95 percent of my school when I say kids do not want mask on,” said an OMS eighth grader named Payton. “By all means, if you’re scared of Covid and all that, then by all means, you have permission to wear a mask, but if not, then I don’t see a reason to. . . Not a lot of people hear us kids . . . we haven’t learned everything about life. But we do know that basic breathing requires taking deep breaths, and breathing in and out, and the masks are kind of stopping that.”
Some questioned the efficacy of masks, while others complained masks inhibit ability to breathe, contributing to anxiety, and other mental and physical health problems.
Holly Watkins spoke about her son who was in kindergarten last year. “He wore a mask every day,” she said. “I would say 80 percent of the time, when I picked him up from school, his mask would be saturated in his saliva. He would suck on it, nibble on it.”
Watkins showed the board the inside of one of his masks, shredded with bite marks. “He’s had a couple dozen masks, but he eats them. He went into eating the second part of the fabric. There’s a giant whole, I mean, he’s consuming it. He went to the dentist and they found that there has been damage done to his teeth because of this. So not only is he sitting in his mask while it’s saturated, which I’m sure that’s not healthy, he’s also consuming it and there’s oral health concerns.”
Parents complained about heavy-handed enforcement, and some claimed forcing children to wear masks constitutes child abuse.
“My daughter was segregated for not wearing her mask correctly and pulled into a storage room,” said Rachel Kotowicz. “I know this has been talked about before, but policing these masks is creating a bigger monster for these children that are being brought up in this. Both my daughters were excited to go to school this year, and that is completely diminished. My sixth grader – it’s a fight, every single night, every single morning. It’s hard, being a parent at this time with an 11-year-old girl who has now been taken into a storage room by the principal and the vice-principal, and I’m supposed to tell her that it’s a safe place. . . I don’t have any solution for her.”
Christen Carr’s eight-year-old son who attends Lakeville Elementary has been sent home “more times than I can count” for not wearing a mask. She said her son has been singled out by the staff and is punished with losing outdoor recess time.
“I would like to know how I am supposed to, as a parent, tell my son that he has to wear a mask for eight hours a day when he tells me that it’s hard for him to breathe,” she said. “He also comes home every single day with a headache. I have told him, if you need to breathe, you have my permission to take your mask below your nose and breathe air, because that’s what you’re allowed to do. My children are not the property of the school district, nor should they be treated that way.”
A third-grade student, Elijah, has only made it through one full school day since the mandate was enforced, according to his mother. “I can’t breathe that well,” he said. “And I don’t want my teacher to think I’m a slacker.”
Not everyone who spoke was from within the district. A man from Macomb County, where there is no school mask mandate, presented to the board documents listing “every law you guys are breaking.”
Several pointed out that none of the board members were wearing masks at the meeting. “I notice most of you are sitting here, in a school, with no mask,” said Ginnie Wade. “Doesn’t it feel nice to have that choice?”
Supt. Tim Throne and all employees of the district at the meeting wore masks, although several staff removed them when addressing the board in front of the microphone earlier in the meeting.

Some said they worried about a coming vaccine mandate. During her school safety update, Assistant Supt. of Student Services Jill Lemond said there are no plans of having any kind of on-site vaccination clinic at any of the schools or compulsory vaccinations for students. “We have nothing in the works towards that goal, and I’ve heard nothing from the county about that. . . In any event, we can’t administer any sort of medication – I can’t give a student aspirin for a headache without written parental consent.”
Board member Heather Shafer asked Lemond why there are no regularly scheduled “mask breaks” like there were last year.
Lemond said students had longer class hours last year because of the block schedule, but this year students never sit in one classroom for more than an hour. “Students are absolutely welcome to ask for mask breaks,” she said, “similar to how they would ask for a bathroom break. All of our staff, especially at the secondary level, have been told to give at least one an hour if they ask for them.”
President Donnelly took care to repeat back his understanding of what each person said after they spoke to make sure they were heard correctly. “I want to thank you,” Donnelly said after everyone had an opportunity to speak. “I have been praying all day that we would end this meeting doing it different than other districts did – and you did it – so give yourselves a round of applause. Thank you.”
The board moved to closed session for a quarterly superintendent evaluation at 12:03 a.m. The meeting adjourned at 1:03 a.m., according to the meeting’s draft minutes.