Anti-mask fury is indefensible

As positivity rates on Long Island decline and vaccination rates increase, there is room for debate on masking in schools.

But there is no need for viciousness, no space for name-calling, no reason for fury. And no excuse for the example anti-mask parents and advocates are providing children about how a civil society disagrees.

Anti-mask protests directed at schools have sprung up on Long Island with fierce debates in Hauppauge, Kings Park, Smithtown and Middle Country. Masking opponents have wielded signs and nasty chants at rallies, hollered at school board meetings, and conducted email and social media campaigns.

Often the tone has been so vile you’d think educators were breaking the law to hurt members of school communities, instead of following the law to protect them.

The controversy over masks in schools overheated when state officials said they expected to lift school masking requirements starting last Monday, before hearing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that masks should stay on indoors. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said students could unmask only outdoors. Mask opponents were understandably disappointed.

But that doesn’t excuse the raging that has followed.

The epicenter of the fight is now Hauppauge. The district grabbed the spotlight last week when the school board and teachers union presidents sent a letter to Cuomo and the state health commissioner stating that "beginning Monday, June 14, we assume we will be able to no longer require that masks be worn by students and staff where other methods for safe social distancing are possible."

Hauppauge Superintendent Dennis O’Hara was not consulted, and disagreed with the move. Kevin Giachetti, the union president, did not canvas district teachers or his executive board.

The state answered that schools must comply with state health mandates to stay open. And the district, exceptional in safely opening for in-person learning in every grade from the first day of school this year, is now in turmoil.

Many of Giachetti’s members disagree with his stance. An email chain begun by a cancer-stricken teacher brought explosive responses from dozens of pro-mask teachers. Giachetti now says, confusingly, that he intended to assert local control, so he can fight for immunocompromised teachers’ right to demand students wear masks next year. Let's see how he explains that to furious teachers at a meeting Tuesday. Also Tuesday, parents are being foolishly encouraged to pull kids out of school for an anti-mask rally at Suffolk County's Dennison Building.

School administrators say the animus is frightening, noting students rarely complain about masks and focus instead on in-person proms and graduations.

There can be reasonable disagreement on whether masks are still needed in schools. But these insults and attacks, and this disregard for educators and students who might be endangered by unmasking, are teaching children shamefully unhealthy lessons.