East Cobb mom pulls children from schools over mask policy

When Sara Cavorley registered five of her children for in-person learning at public schools in East Cobb last spring, she wasn’t aware at the time she couldn’t change that decision.

As it turns out, she wasn’t alone in expressing frustration about not having an option to go virtual, especially as transmission of COVID-19 has rapidly increased in Cobb County in recent weeks.

When she showed up for meet-and-greet events at Kincaid Elementary School and Sprayberry High School last month, Cavorley also was upset that masks would not be required for students and staff, as they were on campuses last year.

“Nobody was wearing masks,” she said about the orientation events.

Cavorley is among those parents who want the district to reimpose a mandate just three weeks into the school year. The Cobb school district has reported 822 staff and student COVID-19 cases since July 1, and nearly 600 last week alone.

The entire fifth-grade class at East Side Elementary School is learning remotely through the end of this week due to an outbreak at that East Cobb campus.

In speaking to East Cobb News last weekend, a few days after a pro-mandate rally at Cobb County School District headquarters, Cavorley said she was thinking of taking her children out of the schools.

Her oldest son, Leland, 13, is enrolled at Simpson Middle School but continues to learn from home. He’s been getting infusions since the age of two due to a rare form of cancer called AML, and as a result lacks a strong immune system. 

“If Leland gets it, we are in trouble,” she said of the virus.

Her oldest son, who attends Sprayberry and is autistic, panicked at the sight of students and staff not wearing masks, she said.

On Monday, Cavorley said she had withdrawn her children to protect Leland from getting COVID-19.

She said she’s undecided about her next move, including the option of home-schooling, since virtual is not an option.

“Children are literally dropping like flies out of school as the numbers soar,” she said. “What is a parent to do, choose between life, or school. It’s a no-brainer, we choose life!”

For the time being, Cavorley said she will be among those attending a rally before a Cobb Board of Education meeting Thursday in favor of a mask mandate. 

“If everyone wears them, they will make a difference,” Cavorley said.

The rally is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.,. before a 7 p.m. board voting meeting, at which parents are expected to speak about the mask issue.

Last week, around 100 mask mandate advocates were met by counter-protesters at CCSD headquarters in what occasionally became a contentious event.

The school board also meets at 2:30 p.m. for a work session, although there’s nothing on the agenda mentioning the district’s COVID-19 response.

But Cavorley said this isn’t just about masks.

“We want all the protocols from last year,” said, including social-distancing, classroom lunches and plexiglass barriers, and she provided a photo of what took place at Kincaid, where she has two children enrolled. 

After struggling to oversee the virtual learning of her six children last year—her oldest, a daughter, is now attending Kennesaw State University—Cavorley was initially glad for them to go back to their schools. 

She and her family bunkered down at home for months, including her husband Sean, a technology executive. While they settled in, she went out do to the shopping, wearing extra protective gear.

“I had to be the one to do it,” said Cavorley, who got some help from her mother, who’s retired from the state public health department. 

Her husband boosted the household WiFi capacity to cover seven computers. Two of her children, Makana and Saoirse, were set up the kitchen, her son Seamus was in a home office and two other children, Eliana and Jayden, learned in a basement.

Leland was upstairs in his room, and her husband worked in the master bedroom. 

“Everyone stayed put but me,” Cavorley said. “And no one got sick. None of us even had a cold.”

Her four oldest children have been vaccinated (children 12 and under are not eligible for the vaccines).

Cavorley said she can’t understand why the Cobb school district isn’t following recent guidance from the Centers for Disease Control recommending universal mask-wearing in schools.

The district has upgraded its protocols to “strongly encourage” masks, but remains one of the few in metro Atlanta not to require them.

“We’re in a mass pandemic,” she said. “We’re trying to protect people as a whole.”

While she “feels for parents who feel their rights are being taken away” with a mask mandate, Cavorley wondered “if they could just see it from a different point of view.”

She said she’s hoping at the very least that parents like her who’ve chosen in-person learning could switch to virtual. 

But the district has set up two different learning environments, unlike last year, and hired limited teachers and staff dedicated for the virtual option.

A Cobb school district spokeswoman told East Cobb News last week that around 2,000 of the district’s estimated 109,000 enrolled students were in the full-time virtual options, the elementary virtual program (EVP) and the Cobb Online Learning Academy (COLA).

“We have to get rid of this nasty thing [COVID-19],” Cavorley said. “This saddens me, that parents aren’t being given any good options.”

Related stories:

• Former East Cobb MS demolition on school board agenda
• Cobb participation down sharply in 2021 Ga. Milestones testing
• Cobb schools report 587 COVID-19 cases; 46 at East Side ES
• 5th graders at East Side ES to learn remotely until Aug. 23
• Cobb schools report 185 COVID-19 cases during first week
• Cobb schools revise quarantine protocols; masks ‘strongly encouraged’

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