The Guardian reported, School board meetings have become the front line in the culture war battle over wearing masks to keep children safe. These meeting have the energy of a Trump rally or January 6th insurrection. The few are by far the loudest.
I spend the day as I painted watching videos of school board meeting about the issue of children wearing masks in school. The level of anger and disrespect shown by many parents who do not want their children wearing masks was amazing. Some meetings devolved into out of control shouting matches.
Many meetings have been disrupted or even cancelled. In Bend, Oregon, proceedings had to be put on hold twice in two weeks, as angry parents shouted at school board members and heckled a Spanish-language translator. “School boards are a uniquely vulnerable spot in the culture war landscape, because they’re open to everyone and they’re not really prepared for it,” said Adam Laats, a Binghamton University professor who studies the history of education in the US.
In Texas, one parent assaulted a teacher by tearing a mask off her face, Eanes Independent School District Superintendent Tom Leonard said in a statement August 24, 2021. “A parent physically assaulted a teacher by ripping a mask off her face, others yelling at a teacher to take off her mask because they could not understand what the teacher was saying while her face was covered,” he said.
A California teacher was hospitalized after a parent physically assaulted her when a discussion about the use of face masks heated up. The teacher suffered “lacerations on his face, some bruising on his a face and a pretty good knot on the back of his head,” KCRA reported.
In a parking lot after a school board meeting in Franklin, Tennessee, parents harassed medical professionals who had spoken in favor of masks in schools. “We know who you are. You can leave freely, but we will find you.”