The Loudoun County Public Schools superintendent planned to present a road map for easing COVID-19 mask policies — but a public meeting Tuesday night was nearly shut down after a surprise demonstration by the children of families opposed to masking.
More than a dozen unmasked students processed into a Loudoun County School Board meeting carrying what parents said were legal documents outlining families’ frustrations with the Northern Virginia school district’s mask mandate and any teaching of critical race theory.
“Unmask our children” and “America is not a fascist state,” a sign held by one student said.
“You’re being served” and “You are being served a legal document,” adults shouted.
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Half of the room had its collective jaw on the floor, and the other half saw it coming as the children filed into the meeting carrying bins of paperwork. The board chair briefly considered shutting down the meeting.
Alongside the students, parent Megan Rafalski explained what the documents were.
"585 affidavits from 65 people,” she said.
More than 82,000 students are enrolled in the district, the third-largest in the state, according to the LCPS website.
Rafalski said the paperwork outlines arguments against several issues, including critical race theory — which the school district says it does not teach — and the in-school mask mandate.
“It’s the next step that we have to take to legally now restore our rights and move forward,” she said.
The group urgently tried to get a Loudoun schools official to sign a document certifying that the affidavits were served. The parents got the signature after about an hour.
Also at the meeting Tuesday, other parents told the school board they want to keep the district’s mask mandate in place. The superintendent said they plan to for now.
The superintendent acknowledged that the state legislature appears likely to grant parents an option on in-school masking, and it's possible that the change flies through the legislature and gets the governor's signature within weeks.
The LCPS superintendent had been expected to propose a road map for lifting the district’s mask mandate. Under the plan, the mask mandate could be lifted once two criteria are met for 14 consecutive days: when fewer than 50 students and staff are in COVID-related isolation and when the community transmission rate falls below what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers substantial risk.
LCPS still has a ways to go before hitting those benchmarks, with more than 130 students and staff in isolation and the county still listed in the CDC's high-risk category.
