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Locked out and frustrated: Residents want Prince William School Board to allow mask choice

Parents protesting mask mandates in Prince William County Public Schools urged the School Board to allow parental mask choice. [Photo: Uriah Kiser/Potomac Local]
When Mandy Ballard’s three children went back to elementary school in August, they didn’t have to wear face masks.

Prince William County Public Schools granted the Gainesville mother of three children ages 6, 8, and 10 a religious exemption to its mandator mask policy. However, things changed Monday, January 31, when her school principal said the children would now need to wear masks.

“I’m not exactly sure why it was only my children, because I do know that there were other children in the school with medical exemptions and other religious exemptions that were not pulled out,” Ballard told Potomac Local.

Last year, Ballard was critical of its equity policy during a School Board meeting, which charges the superintendent to hire new teachers based on their ethnicity. Ballard said she’s waiting for the school division to explain why it revoked her children’s face mask exemptions.

The Prince William County is one of seven public school districts that sued Gov. Glenn Youngkin over his executive order requiring schools to give parents an option to send their children to school without a mask. Surrounding counties, like Fauquier and Spotsylvania, dropped mask mandates last month, making masks optional.

Hundreds of residents and elected county officials packed the school division’s headquarters for a School Board meeting Wednesday night. The majority protested the mask mandate.

The 147,000 square-foot building holds 600 people, according to county property records. However, school security allowed about 50 poeple inside the meeting room to face the elected leaders on the School Board. Guards permitted another 100 to sit in an atrium to view the meeting on closed-circuit TV. Many more were left outside in the cold as security guards barred the doors.

“Let us in. Let us in. Why are you afraid to face us?” shouted a man with a blow horn.

Since Superintendent Dr. LaTayna McDade took office in September 2021, the school division limits the number of people who can attend School Board meetings despite no social distancing order in effect at the state or local levels.

“There’s a lot of debate out there of just how effective the masks are. These kids are going to be affected by these years in the masks…especially…the little kids. It’s time to unmask our students,” said Prince William County Brentsville District Supervisor Jeanine Lawson at the School Board meeting.

In addition to masks, Lawson urged the school division to drop its forced vaccination policy in place since late last month, requiring employees to get a series of coronavirus vaccinations or submit to weekly testing.

Gainesville District School Board representative Jennifer Wall says she’s pushing for the same and hopes to unveil a new resolution to drop the forced vaccination policy at a February 16 School Board meeting.

In the meantime, supporters of mask choice say they’ll continue fighting for children’s ability to show their faces again.

“It’s making learning difficult. It’s hard to breathe all day. It causes irritation on their face. They haven’t seen their friends’ faces in nearly two years. They haven’t seen their teachers’ faces. They can’t read emotions. They can’t read expressions,” said Tammy Tribbett, the mother of a high school student from Gainesville.

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