KNOX COUNTY, Tenn. — Knox County parents are divided after the Board of Education's meeting Wednesday night. The chairman brought a proposal to change the school system's mask policy.
The current policy states masks are required in grades K-12, with a few exceptions. For example, student athletes aren't required to mask up in a game, but in choir and band they must mask up.
The board made no change in policy Wednesday but listened to complaints about those contrasts and the overall mask policy in school.
Chairman Susan Horn made a late addition to the meeting agenda Friday night. Proposal 6H stated, "Discussion and possible action on Knox County Board of Education Policy C-240 'Face Coverings.'"
The public claimed they weren't sure what the proposal meant when it appeared on the agenda initially, but showed up to the meeting to plead their beliefs.
Horn said, once the proposal came up, that she wanted to discuss changing the language in the current mask policy to include mask-wearing exemptions for students in the arts, like theatre, band and choir.
"I'm not trying to pull anything over on anybody," Horn said. "This is a situation that just kept popping up and I felt like perhaps adding clarifying language would help because I continue to hound Superintendent Thomas about this every time I hear from parents, and I've heard from parents of at least three different high schools and so I just felt like that we needed to talk about it, and it and we really couldn't wait to talk about it for another month."
Other board members, like Jennifer Owen, weren't convinced the policy should be changed.
"Something that is especially concerning to me is that this policy that directly impacts our arts curriculum came to our agenda very, very late and with no input from our arts teachers," Owen said.
The meeting opened up to public comment, stirring parents on both sides of the issue.
"Band was not allowed to travel to away games, The band was not allowed to be in the stands and they were exiled to the endzone out on the field away from everyone," Central High School parent Lisa Fontanarosa said. "You denied our kids so much and it broke my heart as a mom. It was unjust and these kids did not deserve that."
Fontanarosa, and other parents there to comment on the same side, mentioned the current mask policy doesn't treat all students equal.
Other parents there to comment, like physician Deaver Shattuck, said he wanted to stray away from emotion and focus on the science of mask wearing.
"Singing is one of our most dangerous events to spread the disease, so it's critical that we mask or don't sing at all," Shattuck said. "We've not had an explosion of COVID cases amongst our kids and that's because y'all keep masks in the schools. That is a fantastic job. That is keeping our kids safe, which is your first responsibility."
Christie Peace is married to Shattuck, and they both feel wearing masks isn't up for debate.
"It's just sort of baffling to me honestly, why any parent would advocate that we that we completely turn away from the science for no apparent reason," Peace said.
The public discussion also shifted to include whether or not masks should be worn in classrooms too.
Some parents cited studies, saying their kids need to see smiles from others for proper development. Others said their kids need to build up an immunity anyway, and want to ditch masks all together.
But, Knox County Education Association President Tanya Coats brought the teacher perspective to the discussion.
"If they really wanted to help us, they would help try to get us get a vaccine in school for adults and for students," Coats nodded. "I do understand parents concerns about students wearing masks. Many of us educators don't want to wear masks either; however, there are some educated people that say, the CDC and the health department say in order for us to flatten the curve, that we keep the masks on in school."
Amber Burns is a parent for in-person learning and is against the current quarantine protocol in the school system. She said it was "unfortunate" that the meeting and public forum went the way it did on Wednesday night, because that was not the original intent.
She said while she has differing opinions from the parents who are 100 percent pro-mask, she wants everyone's thoughts to be heard in a respectful way.
"It is still okay for parents to express frustration and they should be heard," Burns said. "There should be allowances made on a case by case basis for certain kids, they shouldn't have to have anxiety about going to school every day."
In the end, when additional board members and Superintendent Bob Thomas spoke on the issue, it was decided to push an official vote off at least until March.