Parents pull school kids over COVID policies
This week, students will file in through the doors of Mars Area School District buildings for the first day of school under a mask-optional policy.
But not all children in the district will be returning. A growing number of parents are choosing to keep their kids out of in-person school and move them — or return — to online cyberschool programs. They're making their choices in response to what they believe are inadequate COVID-19 safety policies in the face of a rising delta variant.
Alyson Zawitz has two daughters, ages 8 and 12. Because of COVID-19 and the district's mask-optional policy, she said, this is the second year they will attend PA Cyber Charter School instead of Mars Area.
“We have our kids enrolled in PA Cyber Charter School because I need consistency for our girls,” she said. “I don't want to risk the back and forth possibility of going back to school and back and forth.”
Zawitz's husband is a pilot who has worked through the pandemic, and the children's grandmothers are both high risk immune-compromised individuals.
“In our part, as human decency, we want to take care of those around us,” Zawitz said. “One of the whole tenets of being a good Christian is to be kind to one another, and to help thy neighbor. For me, and our family, one of the greatest things we could do is mask up and make sure that we're protecting those who can't be protected.”
Zawitz said that cyber schooling at home has been comfortable for her children, and that her 12-year-old daughter's grades have actually increased due to a lessening of stressors and anxiety. But the world outside of their home is more worrying.
“I love the neighborhood we live in, and I feel like I'm in my own little world in our neighborhood. As soon as I leave it, I feel like we're living in two different places,” she said. “My 8 year old, if she sees someone at Target without a mask, she will walk behind me and she's afraid.”
Zawitz said she wouldn't feel comfortable returning her children to in-person classes unless the district mandated masks and unless she was confident that the classrooms would be safe. “I wouldn't send them back unless the school actually made an effort,” Zawitz said.
Frustrated with district
Mars Area superintendent Mark Gross said at a board meeting Tuesday that district parents surveyed through an online questionnaire were 75% against a masking mandate. The position of the district at the moment remains that it doesn't have the authority to mandate masks without a federal, state or county mandate, but not all parents are satisfied with the explanation.
“If they wanted to do it, they could do it,” said Devin Hays, who has a 4-year-old son with a disability and a 7-year-old daughter. Her daughter will attend PA Cyber this fall, and her son does virtual early learning through Mars Early Learning Center.
“They could take one for the team and protect children; they just don't feel like doing it because it doesn't align with their political ideology,” she said.
Hays believes that the policies are revelatory of a larger issue of treatment of disabled children.
“We are telling them as young children that if they're afraid, to stay home,” Hays said. “What are you telling them then for their rest of their lives, that there's no space for them in the community? The groundwork for excluding people with disabilities is being laid on a pretty big scale right now.”
If the district were to mandate masks, Hays said, she would reexamine sending her children back to Mars Area. “I would feel comfortable if the case numbers weren't exploding — but masks would be the first step,” she said. “Without masks, they cannot step foot into the school building.”
A difficult decision
Taressa Rhoads has a 7-year-old son with an immune deficiency, and a 10-year-old daughter. She says she's still determining what she will do for her children in terms of enrollment, and is frustrated at the lack of remote options for students at Mars Area.
“I'm still working with my pediatrician on what (my son) can safely manage,” Rhoads said. “I don't have a choice a week from school because they can't seem to make good options available. I'm still fighting till the last day, and then I'm going to have to make a decision.”
Valencia resident Ellen Shilling had hoped to send her 10-year-old son back to the district after a year of cyberschooling at Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School. But after the recent school board meeting, she chose to withdraw him from the district again.
“I did want to put him back into Mars for multiple reasons. He's an only child, so he needs that socialization,” Shilling said. “But when I logged into the most recent meeting, (the board members) weren't wearing masks ... they were pretty clear that they weren't going to mandate masks. I withdrew him the next day.”
She said that she knows that she is lucky to have the option of online schooling.
“There's a lot of families that this isn't even an option for them,” she said. “My heart breaks for parents who don't have that option, and that's why I'm still trying to advocate and help for parents to have masks be mandated.”
Zawitz said she wishes parents didn't have to make these kinds of decisions for their children. “I have some friends that were going to go back because their kids needed socialization,” she said. “But we shouldn't have to choose between your kids going stir-crazy because they can't see their friends versus being possibly exposed to a deadly virus.”
