Why Does Your Right to Unmask Usurp My Child's Right to a Safe School?

"Daddy, I'm afraid."

My 12-year-old daughter just had a nightmare, and I was sitting on her bed trying to calm her down.

"What's wrong, Sweetie?"

"I'm worried about school."

That's something with which I can certainly relate.

Even after teaching for 18 years, I always get anxious before the first day of school, and I told her as much.

"Really?" She said.

"That's just it, Daddy. What if the other kids make fun of me for wearing a mask? What if I get sick?"

Our local district is reopening in a week with a mask optional policy and no vaccine requirements.

Her question was expected, but I had been dreading it.

I knew my answers and they sounded inadequate--even to me.

I explained how she would be wearing a mask and is fully vaccinated so it will be extremely unlikely for her to get sick. And even if she does, it will be extremely unlikely she'll get VERY sick.

"And if the other kids make fun of you, just ignore it. You are going to be safe. If they take chances, they'll just have to suffer the consequences."

It seemed to satisfy her, but I left her room feeling like a bad parent.

Covid-19 cases are on the rise again.

Nationwide, nearly 94,000 new child Covid cases were reported last week- a substantial increase, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children's Hospital Association (CHA).

Even in the Pittsburgh region where we live, the number of kids hospitalized with Covid at UPMC Children's Hospital has nearly doubled in the last week, according to KDKA. That's 50 hospitalizations in the past month including 20 in the last week.

My daughter is scared? So is her daddy.

I went to the local school directors meeting and asked the board to follow recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Allegheny County Health Department by requiring masking and vaccinations for eligible students and staff. They refused.

Now I'm stuck in the position of keeping my little girl at home for another year by enrolling her in the district's terrible on-line program, Edmentum, or rolling the dice with in-person schooling.

I'm told there will be more synchronous teaching this year in the remote program, but I don't trust it.

Last year, she only made it through because my father-in-law--a former math teacher--and myself basically taught her everything the on-line program struggled to get across.

We just couldn't do it again this year. It was a full time job--several full-time jobs--too hard on him and me both.

I hope we won't regret it.

And then there's my own work situation.

I teach at a neighboring district that looks like it will reopen the same way with masks and vaccines mere options.

I'm fully vaccinated but immunosuppressed. Might I be putting my own health at risk teaching under these conditions?

Last year, even with masks a requirement, students and staff at both districts came down with the virus nearly every week.

With the more infectious and deadly delta variant on the rise, might it be even worse this year--especially if we are lowering precautions?

Last year I burned my sick days waiting to be vaccinated before returning to the physical classroom. This year I could take a leave of absence, but once again my district is making no accommodations for people like me. I have to work or else try to survive on a reduced salary.

When you're already living paycheck-to-paycheck, that's not much of an option.

I just don't understand it.

Don't my daughter and I have rights?

We hear a lot about the anti-maskers and the anti-vaxxers. A lot about their rights. What about our right to safe schools?

Why is it that the right NOT to wear a mask supersedes the right to go to a school where everyone is required to wear one?

Because it isn't--as I told my daughter--a matter of everyone having to deal with just the consequences of their own actions. My daughter and I have to deal with the consequences of everyone else's actions, too.

Or to put it another way--if one person pees in the pool, we're all swimming in their urine.

If someone else doesn't wear a mask, hasn't been vaccinated and hasn't taken the proper precautions, they can spread the Covid-19 virus through the air and infect whole classrooms of people.

Everyone else could be wearing a mask. It just takes one person who isn't.

Is it fair that everyone else has to pay the price for one person's carelessness?

We talk about rights so much we seem to have lost entirely the idea of responsibilities. They go hand-in-hand.

Yes, you have the freedom to do whatever you like so long as it doesn't hurt another person.

When your actions do hurt others, you have a responsibility to stop. And if you won't do that, the government has a responsibility to stop you.

If people take precautions by masking up and getting vaccinated, the worst that will happen is they'll be unduly inconvenienced. If my daughter and I are forced to exist in the same spaces with people not taking the proper precautions, we could get sick and die.

It's not like we're talking about two equal sides here. This is people who believe the overwhelming scientific majority vs. those who get their answers from YouTube videos and political figures. It's doctors, researchers and immunologists vs. conspiracy theorists, internet trolls and the MyPillow guy.

I'm not even judging--believe what you like so long as it affects only you. But when it affects me, too, then we have a problem.

The lowest common denominator is allowed to run wild. They can do whatever they like and the rest of us just have to put up with it.

That's why we're beginning year two and a half of a global pandemic! Not enough of us got the vaccine by the end of the summer.

Now infections are rising and few policy makers have the courage to take a stand and protect those of us who took precautions from those of us who did not.

And don't tell me our lawmakers don't have the power. There is a mountain of precedent showing they have.

On the highway, you can't just go wherever you want, whenever you want. There are lanes, speed limits, traffic lights.

Even vaccines! To enroll in Kindergarten, parents already have to prove their kids have been vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella and a host of other diseases. Why is Covid-19 any different?

It just makes me feel so helpless.

I can't do anything to protect my students.

I can't do anything to protect myself.

I can't do anything to protect my baby girl.

And I can't wait for the school year to start!