I often create if/then scenarios with my children.
If you get all A’s on your grade card, I will take you to Chuck E. Cheese.
If you do not clean your room, you are not going on a trip with your friends.
At that point, I have set the rules, but I have not decided the outcome. The outcome will be dictated by the behavior and actions of my children.
Did they get all A’s? If so, we go for pizza and games. If not, we don’t.
If the room is clean, he can go with his friends and if it is not, he doesn’t.
As parents, we also have choices to make and those choices come with consequences. Sometimes we must make a choice between two results we don’t like and we must pick the less objectionable.
Actions and decisions have consequences. It is a thing we teach our children but we often forget to consider ourselves.
I recently attended a Fairbanks School Board meeting. Several parents thanked the district for remaining mask optional, but chastised the district for complying with state and local guidance and mandates about quarantines.
These parents had failed to connect the dots that their actions, not the district’s, led to the quarantine.
If their students had been wearing masks, many of them would not have been quarantined. I know this first hand. I have a son in second grade. A classmate of his contracted COVID and was sent home. Several of the student’s friends were also sent home. My son was not one of them. Why? He wore a mask. He gets to stay in school. That’s the rule — if you wear a mask you have a better shot of remaining in school and if you don’t, the quarantine standards are much higher.
This is not a district decision it comes from local, state and national health departments. While there certainly are inconsistencies, there is no mystery that masked students have a better chance to stay in school and learn in person rather than online.
Does anyone like masks? No. Not the teachers, students or administrators. But that’s the hand we are dealt and districts are trying to do their best. Having students wear a mask is no more oppressive to their liberty than making them wear shoes or needing a hall pass to use the restroom.
Parents who act like fools aren’t going to make things better for the children. It is simply a matter that these parents want to be able to do as they please with no consequence. That’s not how the world works. Our actions have consequences. As a parent, your actions have consequences, for you and your student.
If you don’t want to pack your child’s lunch, then you have to eat what the district is serving. You don’t get to refuse to pack a lunch because it is too much work, then demand that your school serve corndogs today because your child doesn’t like tacos.
In the same way, if you feel that your dislike of masks is more important than staying in school, fine. But be prepared to deal with the fall out.
Additionally, if you act out of control at a public meeting or like a bully on social media, be prepared for your child to mimic your actions.
But if you want to give your student the best opportunity to stay in class, and your district the best opportunity to keep learning in-person, wear a mask.
-Mac Cordell is a reporter for the Journal-Tribune.