A teacher’s lament

Board of Education criticizes Florida schools over mask mandates, mulls penalties | Aug. 17

I am a teacher in Hillsborough County. We are being told not to believe our lying eyes, as students get sent home — sick and possibly sick — in increasing numbers. Many would have you believe that everything possible is being done to mitigate the risk involved in having the unvaccinated (elementary) and the partially vaccinated (middle and high school) students congregate in close quarters for 6 to 8 hours a day. Simple math would tell you, that based just on the reported cases and exposures in Hillsborough, if schools were truly quarantining those with meaningful exposure to the virus, there would be no one left in schools.

I have watched, sick to my stomach, as students have been called out of class as if on a treadmill, in order to either begin their isolation or quarantine. As many as have been already sent home, the number, if the schools were truly adhering to guidelines, would be three times what is being seen now. As a teacher, I feel as if I am an enabler, simply by watching children turned into lambs being led to the slaughter of political rhetoric.

There is no reason for this many children to be getting sick and exposed to possibly life altering sickness. Not Democratic children, not Republican children — children. At what point do we draw the line? At what point do we stop lying to ourselves for the sake of comfort, or political identity, or ego, or simply because we cannot bear the reality that we are allowing our children, on a daily basis, to walk into an environment that is, quite literally, infested with a pandemic level virus?

Paige Arondo, Tampa

Alternate reality

Board of Education criticizes Florida schools over mask mandates, mulls penalties | Aug. 17

I just returned from an alternate universe from Florida — Newton, Mass., where more than 90 percent of the eligible population is fully vaccinated. Everyone wears a mask inside. The Republican governor has left it up to local communities to set mask requirements. There is no controversy over all children wearing masks in school. Back in Florida, the governor says the vulnerable population has already been vaccinated. So who are all these non-vulnerable people who are sick and dying?

Carl Zielonka, Tampa

The upside?

Board of Education criticizes Florida schools over mask mandates, mulls penalties | Aug. 17

Kudos to the Florida Board of Education and its anti-mask crusade. Just think! Now whenever a child is admitted to the ICU or even dies from catching COVID in school, the board members can proclaim with pride, “At least we saved them from Critical Race Theory.”

David R. Hoffman, South Bend, Indiana

Where rights end

Board of Education criticizes Florida schools over mask mandates, mulls penalties | Aug. 17

I listened to a woman the other day that stated it is the parents’ right to determine how to raise their child. I am in total agreement. Parents should be able to decide what is fair for their child. However, when their child’s decision endangers other children, they forfeit that right. Sending your children to school with the resurgence of COVID is like sending them to school with an armed hand grenade. Maybe it will go off, maybe it won’t. But if it does, many innocent children will die because of your selfish behavior. If everyone wears a mask in school, then maybe we can save a few parents the grief of having to bury a child.

Richard Wilke, Port Richey

‘Protecting’ us

Board of Education criticizes Florida schools over mask mandates, mulls penalties | Aug. 17

I wish Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran and those like him were as interested in protecting us from COVID-19 as they are in “protecting” us from the imaginary illegal immigrants that were marauding our neighborhoods.

Carlos DeCisneros, Tampa

The truth matters

Worsening numbers | Editorial, Aug. 18

What concerns me is that Gov. Ron DeSantis actually considers it an option to deny the truth about COVID. He has decided that what is happening is not happening. The sad fact is that facts have never mattered less than they do today. We are living in a time when truth has been so diminished in value that even those at the top of government are quite comfortable with truth being whatever they can convince people to believe. But the truth matters.

Edward Helm, Belleair Bluffs