Student protest at Scappoose High School defies mask mandate

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Despite the Oregon Health Authority’s announcement Monday, Feb. 7, that the indoor mask requirements in Oregon’s public schools will be lifted before April, a group of parents and students in Scappoose went ahead with plans for a protest of the mask mandate on Tuesday morning, Feb. 8, at Scappoose High School.

The message of the protest: Students shouldn’t have to wear masks while attending in-person classes, despite public health guidance and state and district rules requiring them to do so.

To emphasize the point, parents lined High School Way Tuesday morning, Feb. 8, encouraging students to enter Scappoose High without wearing masks.

School principal Jerimy Kelley was positioned at the school entrance just before 9 a.m. As maskless students approached, he advised them that they would be sent home if they didn’t wear a mask.

While several students complied, a group of students, approximately 20, entered the school anyway and headed toward their classrooms, past the principal’s office.

Kelley emphasized that mask wearing is a statewide mandate.

“If you are in our buildings right now, you have to wear a mask,” he said. “As a district, we would support that mandate like we’re asked to do.”

Since schools will have the option to lift the mandate at the end of March, Kelley was asked what direction his district may go.

“If that day comes, our superintendent and school board, and the district as a whole, would make that decision together,” Kelley said.

Sharrie Ryan helped organize the event and spoke to the Spotlight.

“We are here to support the students that have chosen not to wear their masks today,” Ryan said, over the sound of supporters honking their car horns. “They’re exercising their freedom, their constitutional right to protest against this.”

Beau Martin, a freshman at the high school, intended to keep his mask off when entering the school building.

“I’m just tired of it,” he said. “It just gets old after a while.”

Another Scappoose High Student, Alyssa Plantz, a sophomore, also wanted to go to class maskless.

“I feel students need to take back some power because we just kind of get thrown in the dark,” Plantz said. “They expect us to listen to everything and not fight back for our freedom.”

Plantz added, “I think it’s just going to be a good way to show them that we’re not going to sit around and let them control us.”

Studies show that medical-grade masks are effective in controlling the spread of COVID-19, which has sickened dozens of students and staff at Scappoose High since the start of 2022. Universal mask-wearing was a statewide requirement last spring, when Gov. Kate Brown directed K-12 public schools to resume in-person learning, and has been required for the entirety of the 2021-22 school year to date.

The mandate is set to be lifted March 31, perhaps sooner, the Oregon Health Authority said Monday.

While several students did enter Scappoose High on Tuesday morning without wearing masks, in a letter to the community on Monday, Scappoose School District Superintendent Tim Porter wrote that students who didn’t wear masks would be sent home. He warned that if many students attempted to enter the building unmasked and refused to put on masks, the district might be forced to cancel school for the day and move to an online format.

Contacted by the Columbia County Spotlight following the Feb. 8 mask protest, Porter could not estimate how many students who entered the building may have been asked to go home.

“If there were any students that entered classrooms unmasked, they would have been asked to put a mask on,” Porter told the Spotlight. “If they refuse to put a mask on, they would have been asked to go to the office and they would have been given another opportunity to put a mask on.”

In Monday’s letter, Porter acknowledged that students have a right to make their feelings known.

“We respect the right of students to protest in a manner that is not disruptive to the learning environment,” the letter read. “We encourage students to participate in civic processes and make their voices heard. However, district and school officials cannot remove the mask mandate.”