The Covington School Board has delayed a decision on whether students will be required to wear masks when schools open on Aug. 25.
The board met for almost 3 1/2 hours Monday night before tabling its decision until Aug. 17.
The board will wait until it sees how Alleghany County and other neighboring jurisdictions handle the mask policy.
But masks weren’t the only issue brought before the board Monday. The board was also confronted with policies regarding transgender issues in schools and the teaching of critical race theory.
The meeting at the school board office on East Walnut Street was packed with an overflow crowd.
By the start of the school year, school boards are required to pass policies that protect transgender students under a law passed by the General Assembly in 2020. School Boards are required to base them on a set of model policies the Virginia Department of Education finalized in March.
Supporters of the legislation say it will help ensure the well-being of thousands of students across the state who don’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth and who report higher rates of bullying and mental health issues than their peers.
“I don’t think this policy is about protecting transgender students,” said the Rev. Mike Rollins of Clifton Forge.
Rollins’ church, Living Stones Ministries, hosted an Aug. 1 forum on the state’s model policies, as well as the teaching of critical race theory in public schools.
“I think this is about the LBGTQ++ trying to indoctrinate the public schools of Virginia with their agenda,” Rollins said.
School boards are required to pass policies consistent with the model policies — not the model policies themselves. The legislation that requires the policies doesn’t call for any punishments to school boards for not following.
Some boards have announced plans to deviate. The Bath County School Board recently decided to eliminate gendered bathrooms and convert them to single-occupancy facilities.
Covington School Board Chairman Bert Baker said the city’s schools have adequate restroom facilities to go that route, if the school board chooses.
“If we have some individuals who feel differently, we can accommodate them without putting out a majority of the students, male and female,” Baker said.
The state’s model policies govern what pronouns school staff should use with a transgender student, whether a school district can inform parents of a student’s chosen gender identity.
“I am looking at values go down the tubes right now,” said Karen Kessinger, who retired from Covington schools after teaching science.
The Rev. Gene Ayers, pastor of Central Advent Christian Church near Clifton Forge, said transgender restrooms would create a nightmare for law enforcement officers. He predicted that allowing male and females to use the same restroom would open the door for numerous criminal complaints.
“I can see all kinds of headaches for our law enforcement,” said Ayers, who retired as DARE coordinator for the Virginia State Police.
“God created man and woman and that’s the end of it as far as I am concerned,” Ayers said.
Baker said policies the school board has enacted are consistent with Virginia code requirements.
“We have current policies in place that we believe protect all students and staff,” Baker said.
“Obviously, we don’t discriminate in our schools and we work with the students that need support on an individual basis,” he said.
The school board did, however, approve a slew of policies changes Monday that were recommended by the Virginia School Board’s Association. The policies are based on General Assembly legislation.
Several of the policies removed pronounces related to “he” and “she” from the wording.
The policy changes were approved by a 3-1 vote with Jay Woodson voting no.
“It is an attempt, again, to change the way we all think and I am not for that. I am against that,” Woodson said.
“It is my conscience and my opinion. It’s a slippery slope and I am not going down it,” he said.
Critical race theory also entered Monday night’s discussions.
Critical race theory is an academic framework that tries to explain how race and racism affect people’s lives. Opinions over the concept have dominated the public’s attention at recent school board meetings across Virginia.
Critical race theory says inequities persist not just because of people’s biases but because racism is embedded in America’s legal and cultural systems.
“We are a community of black and white. I don’t see you by your skin color,” Teresa McCoy of Covington said to the school board.
“I am all for history, we need to learn from history so we don’t repeat it, but what they are teaching is not history. What they are teaching are race and divide,” she said.
The debate over mandating masks in public schools has intensified even more over the past week.
On Aug. 5, Gov. Ralph Northam announced that a law passed earlier this year by the General Assembly will impact how schools handle masking this fall.
The law not only requires in-person learning options at all public school districts this fall but also requires school systems to follow “any currently applicable mitigation strategies…to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 that have been provided by the CDC.”
The most recent update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came last week, with health officials recommending universal masking in schools.
Northam said school districts with no plans to require masks when kids go back this fall should prepare for a legal battle.
Monday night, the school board seemed deadlocked over the issue.
Woodson and Vice Chairman Jonathan Arritt voiced their displeasure with requiring students to wear masks.
Marie Fitzpatrick said she supports the measure. Baker did not voice an opinion.
Cindy Noel, a sixth-grade teacher in Covington schools and a parent of a first-grader, voiced strong opposition to requiring masks.
“I believe parents should have the right to choose if their child wears a mask at school,” she said.
While voicing why she supports masking in schools, Fitzpatrick was met with some headshaking from people in the audience who disagreed with her.
“You guys can shake your heads and have your opinions, but this is life,” said Fitzpatrick, who noted that she recently lost a family member to COVID-19.
The school board will meet again to discuss the mask policy on Aug. 17 — one day after the Alleghany County School Board meets in Low Moor.
Arritt said the city school board should watch how the county handles the matter closely since the school divisions will merge on July 1, 2022.
Baker said he is also interested in how other school boards handle the mask issue.
“It seems like it was spring on us relatively quick. We need to have time to address that,” he said.
Prior to Northam’s announcement, school boards were being told that mask policies were a local issue.
The school board did approve a three-tiered reopening strategy for schools.
Mitigation strategies in each tier would be more stringent if the spread of COVID-19 worsens in the community.
Superintendent Melinda Snead-Johnson said the Delta variant of COVID-19 seems to be severely impacting children, as well as adults, according to the information she is receiving from health officials.