Parents demanding that the Cobb County School District issue a mask mandate will be holding a rally Thursday afternoon.
That’s scheduled for 4:30 p.m. at the district’s central office (514 Glover St., off Fairground St. in Marietta), and is scheduled to last for two hours.
Attendees are asked to wear masks, practice social-distancing and to bring water and signs.
One of the organizers is parent Shannon Mathers Deisen of East Cobb, and among the messages at the rally will be urging the district to follow recent guidance by the Centers for Disease Control and the American Association of Pediatricians recommending indoor mask usage in schools.
Cobb is one of several school districts in metro Atlanta that have a masks-optional policy (along with Marietta, Paulding, Cherokee and Forsyth).
Cobb and Douglas Public Health director Janet Memark also has been encouraging indoor mask use, including at schools, and her agency issued a separate message last week saying that while it is “committed to being a trusted resource for planning, mitigation, case identification, and contact tracing” the final decision on masking policy rests with local school districts, per state law.
Cobb revised its protocols last week to “strongly encourage” mask use, and requires masks for 10 days for asymptomatic people who have been allowed to return to school after being exposed to the virus.
Cobb students and staff were under a mask mandate for all of the 2020-21 school year, and a group of parents sued the district because of it.
They dropped their suit after superintendent Chris Ragsdale announced in the spring that the mask policy would be optional for 2021-22.
That’s when the COVID-19 transmission rate was considered low (below a 14-day average of 100 cases per 100,000 people.
As Cobb students began their school year last week, that figure had soared to more than 300, and is approaching a 14-day average of 500 cases per 100,000 people, PCR and Antigen tests combined.
A Cobb school district spokeswoman told East Cobb News this week that all but around 2,000 of the district’s estimated enrollment of 109,000 students were signed up for in-person instruction.
Parents had until the late spring to choose virtual or in-person learning options, and are not allowed to change them during the school year.
Related stories:
- Cobb schools report 185 COVID-19 cases during first week
- Cobb schools revise quarantine protocols; masks ‘strongly encouraged’
- EPiCS Ignite! to offer free coding workshops for 3rd-6th graders
- Cobb schools release public health protocols for 2021-22
- KSU student announces run for Cobb school board
- Cobb schools SPLOST referendum called; Walton Robotics Lab approved
- Cobb schools financial watchdogs “all about sharing facts”
- On 2nd vote, Cobb school board adopts FY ’21 budget
- Special review of Cobb school district slated for August
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Parents who refuse to have their children mask are risking their health as well as others. Many of their classmates staff and bus drivers have pre-existing conditions. It is mind boggling that some parents are not concerned about their children’s welfare. They are also insensitive to the people who teach and care for their children daily. What message are they sending to their family members and community. It’s the epitome of selfishness. Finally, any one who contracts Covid at school risks their families health as well as out community.
These parents realize that there’s nothing preventing their children from wearing masks, right?
I see what you did there. You set up a straw man argument that all these parents are fighting to allow their kids to wear masks, then you knocked it down by saying no one is stopping them from wearing masks.
“They dropped their suit after superintendent Chris Ragsdale announced in the spring that the mask policy would be optional for 2021-22.”
They dropped the suit because a judge did not give them an injunction to stop the mask mandate which indicates they did not have a chance of winning. Their whole premise was laughable.