Friction over masking between Henrico parents snowballs with sign spat

The drama over masking at Deep Run High School continued this week as signs reading “unmask the kids” have popped up – and disappeared – throughout Henrico's Far West End.

The signs have been removed and defaced by multiple people.

April Sullivan, the mother of a Deep Run student, marked up one of the signs when she saw it at her student’s school.

“I decided since it was on my child's school property, I would add my own little flair to it,” Sullivan said. “I took a big black Sharpie, and I crossed out where it said ‘un’ and I left it to ‘mask the kids.’ As far as I'm concerned, if you put a sign on public property it's fair game.”

The school took the sign down because “you can’t just put anything on school property,” said Eileen Cox, spokeswoman for Henrico County Public Schools.

The signs in medians and on public library property are unauthorized, according to Steven Yob, deputy county manager for community operations. Usually county workers take them down, but Yob said it’s not illegal for any person to remove an unauthorized sign on public county property.

“If somebody wanted to pick up litter on the side of the road, we wouldn't object to that. I consider these to be along the same lines as litter,” Yob said. “That's all for the good, as far as I'm concerned.”

The back-and-forth sign tiff between parents is the latest development in the mask hullabaloo at Deep Run, the Far West End high school at which the largest number of students have gone to school without masks, according to the school system.

HCPS has not rescinded its universal masking requirements. But after Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order rescinding the K-12 mask mandate went into effect Jan. 24, a small group of students defied the HCPS rules at the insistence of their parents, who cited the executive order. Most of those students attend Deep Run.

Patchwork response to masking issues

The approach of schools across the division varied greatly, as shown in documents obtained by the Citizen through a records request.

An email sent from Highland Springs High School administration to staff before the executive order went into effect said that students who refused to wear a mask should be sent home.

The principal of Douglas Southall Freeman High School described in an email to department chairs and admin aides what the plan would entail: “With a ridiculous amount of compassion and respect, we will pull students out of class who refuse to follow school board policy and the rules of Freeman HS and address them. If they refuse, we will bring them to the auditorium to learn remotely and admin will address this. We will return anger and arguments with kindness and sympathy while we enforce the rules.”

Directives from other schools, including Deep Run, mentioned putting unmasked students behind plexiglass.

“This is proof positive that there was a need for clear and consistent guidelines to avoid a crisis,” said Patrick Miller, president of the Henrico Education Association. “That's what we’ve been asking for all along.”

The governor’s order was in effect for roughly two weeks before a ruling from an Arlington County judge temporarily blocked Youngkin’s executive order to give parents the option to opt their children out of school mask mandates.

HCPS announced after the ruling that schools would no longer allow students to attend school without wearing masks. However, parents told the Citizen that they still sent their children to school without masks after the announcement from HCPS.

Maskless students on the horizon

The Henrico County School Board on Thursday voted unanimously to set clear guidelines governing when the school division will remove its mandatory face mask policy for students.

The four-metric plan includes three standards that already have been met. The last metric, which the county has not yet met, is a two-pronged one; the county’s COVID transmission rate must be less than 100 new cases per 100,000 people for two weeks in a row (it’s currently just about half that), and its positivity rate among PCR testing encounters must remain below 10% for two straight weeks (it’s currently just more than 16%).

When the county reaches that point, Superintendent Amy Cashwell now has the authority to remove the universal masking requirement for students.

HCPS’ plan would be superseded if a bill currently passing through the legislature becomes law and is made effective before the last metric is met.

The bill, which includes a provision that would give parents the legal right to send their children to school without masks, is expected to pass through the Republican-controlled House of Delegates. It then will advance to Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who has been pushing for an end to school mask mandates.

Youngkin has the option to put an emergency clause on the bill, which would make it effective immediately. The bill would then go back to the House and Senate for a vote.

Cashwell said Thursday that the school division will comply with the law if it’s enacted.

On Friday, the House Education Committee advanced the bill to the full House floor, where it is expected to pass.

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Anna Bryson is the Henrico Citizen's education reporter and a Report for America corps member. Make a tax-deductible donation to support her work, and RFA will match it dollar for dollar.