Ellington Board of Ed Gets It Right -- Mask Policy Discriminates

Kerry Socha

Americans quickly recover from disasters such as floods and tornadoes, provided one has proper insurance or may rely on the kindness of friends and strangers. But Americans grow irritable over problems easily settled that are exacerbated by stupidity, here defined as a chronic inability to accept responsibility and set a more reasonable course of action to solve the problems one has caused.

Such is the masking situation in Ellington.

Jennifer Dzen, Republican Chairwoman of the Ellington Board of Education, puts it this way. The panel is not opposed to vaccines, according to a Hartford paper. “More than 72% of children between 12 and 17 in Ellington have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and the school system held vaccine clinics for students and staff.”

Given the statistics, it is safe to conclude that there are no vaccine deniers on the Board of Education.

She continues, “We have been following all the guidelines.”

Gubernatorial “guidelines”, more than 300 emergency declarations, have been pulled out of a top hat by Democrat Governor Ned Lamont, whom the General Assembly had invested with plenary powers, recently extended until mid-February. Since the plenary powers have been bestowed on Lamont five times, there is some reason to believe that these extraordinary and seemingly unconstitutional powers may be extended once again – and then again, once again.

Many business people, some Democrats disinclined to tow a partisan party line, and scientists who follow the science, believe that plenary powers, burdensome and irritating, are no longer necessary. They have been strongly suggesting in a variety of ways that government should revert pronto to a constitutional regime in which the General Assembly makes all decisions involving, among other constitutional obligations, the allocation and disbursement of all tax dollars.

Connecticut is nearly alone among states in the union that have extended gubernatorial plenary powers. Then too – we have known since the beginning of SARS research that viral variants are nearly always more contagious but less lethal than the viruses from which they spring. We also have known that natural immunity develops in the bodies of victims that have survived unpleasant bouts of COVID-19; that natural immunity is a more powerful prophylactic than vaccines; that Big Pharma, allied with Big Government, is not at all interested in testing for natural immunity before injecting children with partly successful vaccines.

All this we know. That is to say, parents not locked into old prescriptions that may or may not have been useful two years ago, when COVID slammed into our shores from a U.S. government sponsored lab in China, now know that the old prescription has become somewhat outdated.

And this background makes the foreground of mask mandates for children K-12 attending public school frustrating for parents who -- because they know their children better than do governors and remote savior-politicians -- are now resisting mask mandates for young children who recover quickly from COVID and its milder variants. And it is more than irritating when elected board of education members whip parents who may vote them out of office with Big Sticks, while speaking boisterously with forked tongues.  

And, pray tell, since when have mask “guidelines” become “mandates?” When did this miracle occur, and what witches, mumbling over their pots, are responsible for the rhetorical brew?  Guidelines are carrots, mandates are sticks. “Guidelines” are honey, “mandates” are vinegar. It is more than irritating to find vinegar in the mouths of Board of Education members that they insist is honey -- We’re here to help you fools!

Do you suppose your children belong to you? They belong to plenary Governors, to medical gurus – but not just any medical gurus – to legislators who for two years have sedulously avoided their constitutional obligations, and finally to communications directors mouthing the ramblings of godlike medical “experts” turned legislators.

This carefully contrived political edifice has now collapsed in Ellington.

Republican members of Ellington’s Board of Education have objected to “state guidelines that will require unvaccinated high school athletes to wear masks during sporting competitions … because such guidelines creates a two tiered system that violates student privacy and could stigmatize those who forego inoculations,” according to the paper.

Guidelines issued by Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and the state’s public health department last month state that while vaccinated athletes need not wear masks while playing sports after December 23, unvaccinated athletes “must wear mask while competing and [at] all other times.”

This invidious segregation policy raised the hackles of Kerry Socha, who protested “I don’t think any child should be separated out or distinguished based on their parent’s decisions, religious beliefs, what race they are or color. I don’t care what your political affiliation is. Think about that kid that’s on that basketball court… that is told ‘you can play, but you need to wear this.’ How could it be more of a Scarlet Letter?”

She concluded, “Parents love their children, and they are going to make the best decision for their family. It’s really not for the government or anyone else to judge.”

“No discrimination please” should go over well with inner city athletic teams that are preponderantly Black and rightly averse to wearing Scarlett Letters.