Johnston delays vote on school masks. Congressman Cawthorn calls for end of mandate
The Johnston County school board is delaying its decision on whether to continue requiring face masks in schools amid a protest led by U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn calling for the end of the mask mandate.
The school board opted to postpone Tuesday’s vote due to the absence of vice chairwoman Terri Sessoms, whose husband died recently. A new state law requires school boards to hold monthly votes on their masking policies.
The board will now hold a special virtual meeting at 2 p.m. Monday.
Prior to Tuesday’s meeting, Cawthorn led a protest outside the Johnston County school system’s headquarters in Smithfield that drew hundreds of people. He later spoke at the board meeting, calling masking a fight between tyranny and liberty.
“Set a precedent today for freedom in the state of North Carolina,” Cawthorn said. “Defy Roy Cooper. Make masks optional. End contract tracing and end these burdensome quarantine requirements.
“Let us declare in one loud voice that we will no longer be bullied by radicals who trample our liberties in the name of safety.”
Though Cawthorn mentioned defying Gov. Roy Cooper, the state is leaving it up to individual school districts and charter schools whether to require face masks. But North Carolina officials are urging that schools continue to require the masks due to the ongoing COVID pandemic.
State health officials are allowing for more relaxed quarantine requirements in districts that require masks.
Protesters hope the Johnston board will reverse its 4-3 vote in August to mandate that students and teachers wear masks indoors. A separate protest occurred Monday before the Harnett County school board voted 3-2 to end its mask mandate.
But some speakers at Tuesday’s board meeting urged the district to stand firm on its masking decision.
“I don’t love wearing a mask,” said April Lee, a classroom teacher and president of the Johnston County Association of Educators. “I don’t love teaching while wearing a mask. But I understand for now, this is what we need to keep our kids in school.”
Most districts still require masks
So far this week, two school districts, Harnett County and Lincoln County, have both voted to go back to making masks optional. Lincoln County is emulating Union County, which is also mask optional, in scaling back quarantine requirements so only people who’ve tested positive for COVID or who are symptomatic have to quarantine.
But nearly all of North Carolina’s 115 school districts are still requiring masks. Johnston is among dozens of North Carolina school districts that put on hold plans to not require masks amid the surge of COVID cases from the delta variant.
Johnston County is the state’s seventh-largest school district, with more than 37,000 students. According to the school district’s COVID dashboard, there are 178 active cases and 782 quarantines among students and 15 cases and 50 quarantines among staff.
Dr. Rodney McCaskill, the chief medical officer at Johnston Health, warned the school board on Tuesday that things are getting worse in the county’s hospitals. That will spill over into the school system, he said.
McCaskill said there’s been a tenfold increase in the number of patients in the county’s hospitals who are on life support. He said hospital beds are so full that hospitals have stopped elective surgeries that require an overnight stay.
Vaccines work, McCaskill said, pointing to how every COVID patient in the county’s hospitals who is intubated or who is on life support was unvaccinated.
Cawthorn speaks against mask mandate
Johnston County is located hundreds of miles from Cawthorn’s Western North Carolina Congressional district. But the Hendersonville Republican has spoken against mask mandates in multiple school districts.
Cawthorn acknowledged Tuesday that he’s far from his district. But Cawthorn said he was here to “save my generation from socialism” and to “stop sending these cookie-cutter politicians to the school board, to Washington D.C. and to the General Assembly.”
“I want to thank everybody who is here in Johnston County doing their jobs to defend our country, to fight back against the tyranny that is trying to take your parental rights away,” Cawthorn told the crowd. “We are here to help you. We will not comply.”
During his speech to the school board, Cawthorn repeated the statement he had made at a Buncombe County school board meeting in August when he called it “psychological child abuse” to require masks in schools.
Citizen Advocates for Accountable Government and JCPS Parents For Freedom organized the protest. Several speakers at the protest called on attendees to elect more Republicans.
Joe Preston, who served as the protest’s emcee, announced Tuesday that he will run for Johnston County school board next year. His wife, Aurora Preston, announced she has resigned from her job as a teacher at South Johnston High School. She had been on unpaid leave after refusing to wear a mask in school.
“We have a school board that votes 4-3 for a view that doesn’t make any sense to anybody that believes in conservative Republican views,” Joe Preston said.
Cawthorn was also joined Tuesday by Bo Hines, a Congressional candidate from the Charlotte area, and Robby Starbuck, a Congressional candidate from Tennessee. Starbuck asked the crowd “are you happy with these tyrannical school boards run by Marxists?”
“Today, individuals from outside of our community traveled from hours away to attack our local elected officials and to promote dangerous rhetoric in attempts to sow division, while our hospitals are filling up and our health care workers are overworked and drained,” Sharon Castleberry, chairwoman of the Johnston County Democratic Party, said in a statement Tuesday. “We are thankful for the way that our community has navigated the unprecedented challenges presented by COVID-19 and applaud our school board for the steps they have taken so far to keep schools safe.”
This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 4:51 PM with the headline "Johnston delays vote on school masks. Congressman Cawthorn calls for end of mandate."
