School mask rules confronted by some Inland Empire students

Eighth grader Jameson Terry of Rancho Cucamonga took his mask off when he could stand it no longer. Later, a cop showed up at his house.

In Temecula, siblings Drew Nelson, 17, and Victoria, 16, headed to a Springs Charter Schools campus without face coverings. They refused requests to wear masks.

“It’s hard to do school with a mask on,” said Terry, who is 13. “It’s distracting because it’s something on your face and it’s in the way of everything. It’s also sweaty.”

Across the Inland Empire, following a long and widespread pandemic closure, schools are trying to bring back in-person teaching while monitoring for coronavirus outbreaks and enforcing a statewide mandate that students wear face coverings inside school buildings.

School officials received much pushback from parents on California’s requirement as they prepared to open their doors last month and some students have since refused to mask up. Despite those disputes, Inland school officials say most kids are wearing face coverings without complaint.

As for Jameson Terry, he removed his mask Tuesday, Aug. 10 — the first day of the 2021-22 school year at Vineyard Junior High School in the Alta Loma School District, his mom, Conni Terry, said. The next day, he made it through a few class periods before again removing the face covering because it bothered him. Both times, she said, her son was asked to leave.

The conflict involving Drew and Victoria Nelson also occurred the first day of school, which for them was Thursday, Aug. 19.

“They told me that they didn’t want to wear masks to school,” their father, Gary Nelson, said. “I said, ‘Well, go to school. Maybe your school won’t enforce it … Maybe nobody will be wearing a mask. It’s a charter school.’”

Class started at 9 a.m., Gary Nelson said, and at 9:06 he received a call from the school saying his daughter needed a mask.

Natali South, a spokesperson for Springs Charter Schools, wrote in an email Thursday, Sept. 2, that the superintendent sent notes to all students’ families July 30 saying Springs would enforce California’s statewide mask-wearing requirement in schools.

In an interview, Victoria Nelson said she refused to don a mask not because of discomfort, but because of her Christian belief that doing so covers “the image of God.”

“I believe that we were made in the image of God,” she said, citing a passage in the biblical book of Genesis. “And I know that Satan hates that. He uses everything he can to try to cover up what we look like.”

Sharon McKeeman, founder of the Oceanside-based advocacy group Let Them Breathe that has been organizing anti-mask rallies and consulting families opposed to the school mandate, said many parents have expressed concern about the treatment of defiant students.

“Kids are being told to go home — harassed and intimidated into going home,” McKeeman said, calling Jameson Terry’s situation “one of the worst and most bizarre.”

When it comes to enforcement, most Inland school systems have been requiring masks. But not all.

In an Aug. 7 email to Redlands Christian Schools parents, Head of Schools Brian T. Bell outlined a different approach.

“We have successfully navigated our summer programming mask optional and will continue that into the school year,” he wrote. “We will support parents and students who choose to be masked as well as those parents who prefer to have their student not wear a face covering.” The policy also was mentioned on the schools’ website.

Bell did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Schools have flexibility in how they enforce the rule, but “do not have discretion or authority to opt out from enforcing the requirement,” the California Department of Public Health wrote in an email.

Wearing masks is one of the most effective and simplest ways to curb the spread of the coronavirus, state health officials say.

There are potential consequences for not enforcing the mandate. Officials warn on a state website that schools and school officials could face civil lawsuits and fines, and be disciplined by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

The Pomona Unified School District is enforcing the rule, said spokesperson Oliver Unaka, and its campuses have gotten broad buy-in from parents glad to have their kids back at school.

In the Rialto Unified School District, mask wearing has been widely accepted and “become second nature,” spokesperson Syeda Jafri said.

Similarly, compliance hasn’t been an issue in the San Bernardino City Unified School District, one of the region’s largest, spokesperson Maria Garcia said.

“Our teachers and school staff do have to remind students from time to time that appropriate mask wearing includes covering the nose,” Garcia wrote.

In Moreno Valley, there also has been widespread compliance, Moreno Valley Unified School District Superintendent Martinrex Kedziora said.

“In fact, I see students wearing them outside when they aren’t required to,” Kedziora said.

Laura Boss, a Temecula Valley Unified School District spokesperson, wrote that there have been a few isolated problems.

In Redlands, officials has seen a “few frustrations” regarding mask wearing in the Redlands Unified School District, said Heidi Mackamul, assistant to the superintendent. Each situation, she wrote in an email, was resolved without moving a student to “an alternative learning setting.”

At many schools, Inland officials said, the alternative is enrolling in a long-term independent study program that students do from home.

In a bid to address mask fatigue, Redlands Unified Superintendent Mauricio Arellano announced in an Aug. 5 letter a plan to give kids “face-covering breaks” after 30 minutes of instruction in kindergarten through the third grade and after 45 minutes in fourth and fifth grades.

“The ‘face-covering break’ involves allowing the teachers to take the students briefly outdoors to remove their face-covering, get some fresh air, regroup and then return to the instructional program indoors,” Mackamul wrote.

As for what’s next for the Nelson children and Jameson Terry, Conni Terry said she has a meeting with Alta Loma officials Tuesday, Sept. 7. Gary Nelson said he has a meeting the same day with Springs Charter Schools.

Since being sent home on the first day of school, Victoria Nelson, a straight-A student, said she has kept pace by doing assignments.

She wants to return to the classroom but said, “I’m not going to go back if they won’t accept my religious exemption.”

Victoria Nelson claims such an exemption because, she said, her refusal to mask up is rooted in her beliefs.

Springs Charter Schools, which has headquarters in Temecula and more than 10,000 students in the Inland Empire and surrounding counties, said in an emailed statement that no religious exemptions are permitted in the state’s school mask order. One is not mentioned in an online list of exemptions from following mask requirements.

In its statement, Springs Charter officials did not address the Nelsons’ situation. However, officials wrote that no students had been expelled or excluded.

“Any student who declines to wear a mask at school is given the opportunity to participate in our academic home study program with full access to staff and curriculum,” the statement said.

As for Jameson Terry, his mother said she obtained a note from the family doctor Thursday, Aug. 26, granting her son a medical exemption. She delivered the note to the school. That night, she said, she received an email from the school saying he had to wear a clear plastic face shield with a drape.

Conni Terry said that bothered her son, who worried he would be singled out and laughed at.

Jameson Terry said he returned to school the next day wearing, instead, a disposable mask with a ski mask over it “to keep the mask underneath in place so I wouldn’t play with it.” That day, he said, he was separated from the other kids in a second-period science class.

“They were instructed to go to the library,” he said.

Jameson Terry also said that an administrator grabbed the ring of his backpack and the school called his mom.

“They said I couldn’t be there because I was trespassing,” he said.

Conni Terry said a short time later an armed school police officer stopped by the house. She said the officer told her the school wanted her to sign an agreement covering expectations, and that Jameson Terry would be cited for trespassing if he returned to campus absent the agreement. Conni Terry filmed the conversation, which was posted on Instagram.

Alta Loma School District Superintendent Karen Hendricks said in an email she could not comment on any matter involving a specific student.

“I can tell you, however, that no students have been singled out with respect to our COVID-19 public health guidelines,” she wrote.

Hendricks said a person with a medical exemption is required by state health rules to “wear a non-restrictive alternative, such as a face shield with a drape on the bottom edge, as long as their condition permits it.”

Hendricks said mask wearing isn’t an option.

“This is not an Alta Loma issue – or any other individual school district – but a statewide requirement for public K-12 schools throughout California,” she wrote.