West Ada School District faces backlash for photos of unmasked, closely packed teachers
The West Ada School District is drawing backlash and praise after posting photos of a professional development day at a middle school with teachers close together, with no masks, doing a series of team-building exercises.
The photos, posted to the district’s Facebook page, showed about 20 staff members from Victory Middle School in close proximity to each other. One of the photos showed a group that appeared to be blowing through straws to do an exercise that involved picking up candy.
“Victory Middle School welcomed Kodiak staff and had a day of professional development, but also a day of reconnecting and building culture,” the Facebook post said. “VMS staff competed in the ‘Kodiak Olympics’ of 2021 and ultimately it was the ELECTIVES department who won the Gold.”
The collection of photos received 1,600 comments. Many comments urged teachers to be more responsible and called the event reckless and dangerous as COVID-19 cases surge in Idaho just days ahead of the district’s first day back at school. On the other side, people said they were happy to see the teachers’ “smiling faces” and appreciated the district giving its staff the right to choose what safety protocols they wanted to follow.
“I give it 2 weeks before the school shuts down for a COVID outbreak,” read a comment from Facebook user Vivien Blackwood. Facebook user April Crowell wrote: “Oh hell. There’s going to be a lot of unsmiling faces in quarantine or very sick real soon. Delta doesn’t care.”
On the other side, user Ashley Van Cleave wrote: “I see happy teachers. I see people with free choice. Good for all of them!!” Leighann Peters Nicolaysen wrote: “Looks like a bunch of happy teachers right there! That’s awesome! They look excited to start the school year! Lucky kids to have these teachers!”
The photos drew particular scrutiny from a woman who said she is a nurse in Idaho, whose TikTok video featuring a photo from the post received more than 34,000 likes.
“OK I just have to check because sometimes I feel like I live in a world where there’s a pandemic, but everyone else lives in a world where there’s not a pandemic, so, we’re still having a pandemic, right?” she said at the start of the video.
“Because, these are teachers, in my kids’ school district, who are not masked and doing a team-building exercise where they blow through straws in each other’s faces. … What are we doing?”
The West Ada School District did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
District board says masks are optional
Students in the West Ada School District will head back to school Thursday. The district’s board in June approved a plan that makes masks optional when students go back to the classroom. Under the pandemic operating plan, Superintendent Derek Bub was given the “authority to make operational decisions,” which could include putting into place a mask mandate, “if necessary, to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.”
After the district changed to a mask-optional policy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended masks indoors in K-12 schools for everyone, regardless of vaccination status. Most school districts in Idaho have stuck with mask-optional policies.
At the district’s last board meeting earlier this month, Bub said masks are recommended — but did not issue any kind of mandate. He said he would look at the situation on a school-by-school basis, since the district spans such a large geographical area. That could mean a classroom or a school could have to wear masks, while others don’t.
Health officials have warned with the far more transmissible delta variant circulating, schools could experience outbreaks that could force large numbers of kids and teachers to quarantine.
“We know what delta does,” Dr. David Pate, former CEO of St. Luke’s Health System, told the Idaho Statesman earlier this month. “All we have to do is look around to the other states in the country that have opened schools and haven’t had mask requirements, and what we’ve seen is those outbreaks occur in the first week, often in the first few days.”
Pressure on both sides of the issue
Many parents are arguing the district should look at metrics such as hospitalizations and deaths among kids and vaccinated adults to decide whether to mandate masks in the classroom. Throughout the pandemic, kids who get the virus have typically experienced more mild symptoms and have rarely been hospitalized.
Other parents are saying, though, with the surge in coronavirus cases in the region, masks are a good tool to keep students and staff safe and to prevent them from having to quarantine in the event of an exposure.
The district’s board of trustees is planning on Tuesday to discuss and take possible action on back-to-school safety protocols, but they have not specified what those measures will be.
Char Jackson, chief communication officer for the district, said the board is discussing “safety protocols, including masks.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
