School District Sends Letter Saying They’ll Label Unmasked Students a ‘Clear and Present Danger’ and Prosecute Parents for Truancy – Opinion

It’s as if Kamala Harris is still the Attorney General in California.

Facing a wave of students peacefully protesting mask mandates by simply showing up to school unmasked, administrators all over the country are doubling down – leaving elementary school students outside with no coats on a cold day, unsupervised; attempting to barricade high school students in an unheated gymnasium; making them sit on the curb without desks, a teacher, or work; denying them access to the school; and labeling them a “clear and present danger to the life, safety, or health of a pupil or school personnel” in order to legally exclude them from campus.

A school district outside Stockton, California, in the state’s Central Valley, is proactively warning parents about what will happen if their children show up to school unmasked (possibly in support of the students in neighboring Oakdale). In a letter distributed Thursday, Ripon Unified School District told parents to “remove your students from campus unless they wear a face covering,” and that failure to do so “would force the District to consider taking other potential actions which the District would rather avoid, if possible, including”:

• Labeling the presence of their child a “clear and present danger to the life, safety, or health of a pupil or school personnel,”
• Contacting your local Child Protective Services You can contact your parents without ever contacting them first “as they have been abandoned on campus by you,”
• Identifying the children as truants and refer them to a School Attendance Review Board “which could result in criminal charges against” parents,
• Resigning children from school
• Superior Court to file for a restraining orders that would prevent children attending district schools from wearing masks inside.

I’d like to say we’ve reached peak insanity, but I don’t want to tempt fate.

After citing Education Code 48213 and the “clear and present danger” language, the district attempts to induce guilt with a laughable assertion in a run-on sentence:

Presently, your children refusing to wear a face covering in compliance with a legal requirement to do so in light of the world’s greatest pandemic in over 100 years which has resulted in over 3.4 million deaths constitutes a clear and present danger to both your children and to other District students and staff who could be infected by your children.

Of course, we know that there is no scientific evidence (at least not in a reputable study) showing that masking in schools – or failure to mask – results in any difference in Wuhan coronavirus infection rates. However, we have seen overwhelming evidence that masking in schools can cause harm, even in lefty bibles such as The Atlantic which published at least eight articles on this topic in the past seven months.

The final paragraph contains some pretty abusive, gaslighting language – essentially telling parents, “We don’t want to hurt your kids, but hey, that’s up to you.” It reads (spelling unchanged):

“Again, the District would hope that it isn’t forced to consider these admittedly more drastic alternatives, but what action the District ultimately is forced to takes is dictated by your actions in this regard. At the same time, the District continues it’s offer to enroll your children in the District’s Independent Study if you decide that they will continue not to wear face coverings at school.”

The district believes that all children refusing to wear masks are doing so because they were told by their parents not to. Their belief is that children cannot think for themselves.

To those who have been following recent activity in California regarding masking in schools, this tactic isn’t surprising. Education Code Section 48213 is what Simi Valley Unified School District cited when “excluding” Kamdin Hernandez, the 9-year-old boy I wrote about Wednesday. The district then sent Kamdin’s parents a truancy letter, claiming that days he was on campus but sitting outside he was really absent without a valid excuse (at least the district isn’t claiming he was there in order to receive per capita funds). They also threatened to call CPS if Kamdin’s dad didn’t take him home, saying that would constitute abandonment.

In Kamdin Hernandez’s case, the district also ignored the fact that Kamdin’s ADHD made the mask so distracting that he was unable to think – something he and his parents told them on multiple occasions, and sought to keep his dad off campus by claiming he was a “disturbance” when he showed up every afternoon to pick his son up from school and stood in a socially-distanced line without a mask. By sending him a letter claiming he was a disturbance, they could charge him with trespassing – and they tried – if he even stepped onto the walkway leading to the school gate he could be charged with trespassing. You can guess that’s what the next step will be for Ripon Unified School District should any parents decide to stand up for their children.

You can also bet that Gavin Newsom won’t be masked again at SoFi Stadium during the Super Bowl.

We should probably thank Ripon Unified – their actions might produce a few plaintiffs in lawsuits that can lead to the end of this madness.