School Covid mask rules have sparked parent-teacher violence. We can't ignore it.


By Anne Lutz Fernandez, high school English teacher

One of the first pieces of advice a veteran teacher gives a novice is to set the classroom tone in the first few weeks of school: Letting early disruptions slide can mean ongoing misbehavior that hinders learning. This year, it’s the adults who are misbehaving, with few educators prepared for the verbal and physical attacks that have marked the start of another not-normal year.

Protestors burning masks, ripping masks off educators’ faces and hurling obscenities have disrupted and derailed education board meetings nationwide this summer as local officials have sought to allow in-person learning despite a new wave of Covid-19 cases powered by the delta variant of the coronavirus.

These protests are taking place at town halls and school parking lots, but they have their genesis elsewhere. They’ve been sparked and fanned by right-wing media personalities with national platforms and by politicians and social media agitators who’ve taken to calling school mask mandates “child abuse” — and the teachers who support them child abusers. Protests have reached a fever pitch as the topic dominates school board agendas alongside and often intermingled with issues like the manufactured panic over critical race theory.

Frighteningly, the anger seems to be escalating. In the past week, authorities said, a mother in Texas tore a teacher’s mask from her face and a father in California verbally assaulted a principal and physically attacked a teacher who intervened, sending him to the hospital.

At the most basic level, such incidents teach children that violence can and should be used in self-advocacy and to solve problems. But they also introduce damaging attitudes transmitted to children about their teachers: that they can’t be trusted, don’t care about them, shouldn’t be listened to.

A decadeslong drumbeat of negativity about schools from politicians and pundits has led Americans to have a low opinion of them nationally. Even so, the majority of parents have regarded their children’s own schools and teachers highly. This is because they’ve been able to meet and talk with their teachers, hear from their children about them and understand them as professionals and partners invested in their children’s growth — as well as neighbors and human beings. They’ve been able to mostly separate their personal experiences from the national conversations, a distinction in danger of erasure.

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