The Des Moines Public School District continues to push its staff to wear masks and recently put out a video explaining the district cannot issue a mask mandate.
In last week’s newsletter to staff, the district started by saying everyone is encouraged to mask up because “wearing is caring.”
According to the district, in some schools, more than 90 percent of students and staff are wearing masks.
The district also shared a video message from board chair Dwanna Bradley.
Bradley says in the video that the board will not issue a mask mandate in accordance with Iowa law.
“We realize that parents have concerns, and we are concerned as well for the spread of the COVID-19 Delta variant in our schools, especially among our unvaccinated young people — our students,” Bradley said.
She noted that the guidance is for universal masking in schools for vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
“It is abundantly clear to the experts that when everyone wears a mask, we keep kids healthy and in school,” she said. “And most importantly, we save lives as we wait for a vaccine to be provided for our young children.
“However, the governor of Iowa and the state legislature have created laws that restrict us from using our most effective tool besides vaccinations, which are masks. The governor is the only person who can give us permission to use universal masking to protect everyone as the Delta variant surges in Iowa. So far the governor has declined to do so and she is giving us no indication of how many children will need to be infected before she will consider allowing us to have a mask mandate.”
She finishes by urging “everyone” to please mask up because wearing is caring.
But here is what is interesting about all of that…
Bradley sends her own son to Grand View Christian School. Masks were never required at Grand View Christian last year and they are not required this year either.
As one individual who works for the Des Moines Public School District told The Iowa Standard:
“Interesting the coercion to mask up at DMPS and all the while the board chair’s son goes to Grand View Christian with zero pressure to wear masks. Her video shows she has one set of standards for her son and a different standard for the 33,000 students at DMPS.”
