Like it or not, New York Gov. Hochul has ordered all teachers, staff, and students to wear masks in classrooms.
If you don’t like it, you can challenge her mask order in court, and try to persuade a judge that she (1) exceeded her authority, (2) didn’t follow proper procedures, and/or (3) the order violates state law or your individual rights. Alternatively, you can vote her out of office in the next election, and elect someone more sympatico with your views on the issue.
Or, you can call the cops on a school that enforces the mask mandate. Which is what a parent in Suffolk County, on Long Island, did last week, The Hill reported on Saturday, September 4, 2021. The police showed up, and took a report, but decided it wasn’t “a police issue.” In other words, they’re not going to enforce the parent’s objections to their maskless child being removed from a classroom and taken to the school auditorium by the school security guard. Read story here.
This is America. We are Americans. The right to be a stupid, ignorant, clueless jerk is precious to us, more to some than others. You can believe baseless conspiracy theories, prattle complete nonsense (although not necessarily on this privately owned blog), worship false idols (or turnips, if you please), and vote for lying, corrupt, incompetent candidates; and many of us would die to defend those rights.
But it’s not unlimited. There are limits to everything, including the freedoms we enjoy in this country. Generally speaking beliefs, thoughts, writings, and speech are unregulated; but behavior is. There’s an old saying that goes, “Your freedom to swing your fist stops where my nose begins.” So, you can believe masks are useless, even harmful, and say so all you like; but don’t have a right to inflict your maskless kid on the other students in that classroom.
If the school handled that situation in an appropriate way, then maybe there’s an issue, perhaps even a police issue. In this case, the aggrieved parent called the police, they responded and investigated the situation, concluded it was a school matter and not a police matter, took down a report as requested, and went on their way.
The school policy is this:
“As discussed with our community previously, any district student who does not adhere to the mask mandate will be brought to an alternative location where students are advised to either put on a mask or wait for their parent/guardian to pick them up.”
That policy apparently was followed in this case. The police concluded no laws were broken. If the parent still has an issue with it, then my advice is: Get a lawyer. And be prepared to shell out big bucks to sue the school district, the governor, and the world you’re mad at. Spending fifty or sixty thousand dollars on attorney’s fees might not get you what you want, but at least it will buy a lot of catharsis.