Editor’s Note: Readers have brought to our attention they think the use of the term ‘escort’ was not specific enough to describe the situation. To clarify, no one was forcibly removed by police. Police asked those who could not remain quiet during the meeting to leave and directed them out the door.
MOUNT VERNON — The bulk of Mount Vernon City Schools’ school board meeting at Twin Oak Elementary Monday night comprised discussion of a topic that has similarly been the focus of Knox County districts’ board meetings throughout the month — masks.
A few of the meeting attendees were escorted out by police officers after the attendees interrupted the board discussion portion of the evening, following the conclusion of public participation.
Disruptions have also occurred at other districts’ meetings this month, including Fredericktown when its school board president said several times attendees would be escorted out by police if disruptions continued.
Those who spoke in favor of requiring masks in school at Mount Vernon’s meeting — Andrea White and Jené Schoenfeld — urged board members to keep the mask mandate in place to curb community COVID-19 virus spread and prevent a widening of achievement gaps.
Those who spoke against urged a return to the mask-optional policy in place at the start of the school year to allow for parental choice, one of whom was Mount Vernon parent Amy Joyner.
“I understand things have happened between now and then,” Joyner said, referring to the board’s August meeting when superintendent Bill Seder spoke about the district’s (at the time) mask-optional policy. “But, we feel like those rights are now no longer in our hands.”
Seder spoke about the district’s decision to change its policy, which it did on Sept. 2, during his district update later in Monday’s meeting.
Seder said the district switched to a mask mandate when its COVID-19 case and quarantine numbers were nearing 20% in some buildings, a measurement Seder had said in early August the district would use to assess its mask policy.
“I will take ownership of this — we set a safeguard that was 20%, we were right approaching that at both the middle school and the high school, and I made the decision that we weren’t going to split our schools up and have some masked and some not masked,” Seder said. “We saw it getting out of control, so we went to a mask requirement for everybody.”
Seder said the district has almost surpassed the number of student cases it had during the 2020-21 school year compared with the case numbers for this year thus far. The district had 137 student cases and 69 staff cases during the 2020-21 school year. The district has had 123 student cases and 20 staff cases this school year, which began Aug. 19, Seder said.
The district will continue to evaluate its mask policy in the coming weeks, he said.
Several parents said during Monday’s meeting they want a meeting with school officials solely for parents to voice their opinions on masks in school.
Jordan Denez, a parent who moved to Mount Vernon last year, said he would bdrawing his children from Mount Vernon City Schools, and parent Abraham Harrod said he kept his children home when the district’s mandate first took effect.
Harrod also questioned why the majority of the board members and the superintendent did not wear masks during Monday’s meeting. One board member, Mary Rugola-Dye, wore a mask.
A few parents spoke about concerns of masks having harmful affects to their children’s health, specifically exposing them to dangerous levels of carbon dioxide. Concerns of this effect began spreading in the summer following a now-retracted June 2021 study published by the Journal of American Medicine Association.
JAMA retracted the study in July, and health organizations including the World Health Organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics, among others, have since said face masks do not expose children to dangerous levels of carbon dioxide.
Typically, public participation is limited to 15 minutes, but the board extended public participation to 30 minutes due to there being more interest from the public than board meetings in recent months, board president Margie Bennett said Monday.
When the 30 minutes concluded, multiple attendees continued to interject. After approximately 10 minutes of continued interjections, attendees who could not remain silent for the board discussion were escorted out of the building by police.
In other business:
During Seder’s district update, he also said the district’s website re-launched with a new design.
The board approved donations for various schools in the district, including school supplies from Hopewell United Methodist Church to Dan Emmett Elementary School, $1,500 for a chromebook cart from Dan Emmett’s parent teacher organization to Dan Emmett Elementary, $10,000 to be used for a timing system at the Energy Fieldhouse and an obstacle course at Pleasant Street from Lakeholm Church and approximately 900 tubes of hand sanitizer valued at over $1,800 from Rural King to the district at large.
The board also approved 19 salary notice changes for certified/licensed staff as well as several other employment changes, ranging from supplemental contracts (coaches, safety patrol, homework study table, etc.); to an agricultural education fifth quarter grant ($3,045.68); to substitute and extracurricular contracts.
The board reported one resignation — Luke Bear. Bear has worked in maintenance for the district for several years and will be moving to nearby Danville Local Schools to serve in a director maintenance role, Seder said.
The board also did a first reading of several updated board policies, which it did not vote on Monday. One of the policies involves public participation and would add additional guidance for the presiding officer to interrupt or terminate a participant’s session if comments that are repetitive, obscene or constitute a true threat are made.
A pre-recorded video presentation from student government senior class president Jaanvi Patel was shown Monday night as well. Patel provided updates about upcoming events, including homecoming activities — a bonfire, dance and football game — as well as a college night that will occur at the Energy Fieldhouse Tuesday night.
