SC Safe Schools COVID Legal Fund (Pro-Mask)
We have a legal path forward to protect ALL children but we need your help to get there! These funds will be used for the attorney retainer.
“The liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good."
- United States Supreme Court 1905
All children should have the right to an equal and safe education. Currently, the SC Legislature and Governor Henry McMaster have restricted safety within the school environment, in the midst of the Delta variant surge, which is the biggest danger that our children and those they love have faced during this pandemic. Delta is 200% more transmissible with a viral load that is 1000 times previous strains.
Masks cannot be required, due to funding restrictions from the Budget Proviso 1.108. We agree that children do belong in the classroom but this misguided budget proviso will actually prevent this from happening, due to illness and quarantine. This is already the case in many districts where school has started. A safe learning environment can only be provided by mitigating risk with scientific and evidenced based approaches, such as universal masking, which is recommended by the CDC, DHEC and the American Academy of Pediatrics and is proven effective at preventing the spread of COVID-19, especially in close and crowded environments, like our children's classrooms.
Based on research studies, masks work best when all are wearing them and provide the most protection to those who are around the mask wearer (ie, your mask protects me and mine protects you). According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), as of the first week in August, SC was 3rd in the nation for COVID-19 infection rates among children. Almost 1% of children will be hospitalized due to their COVID-19 infection, and 7-8% will develop a condition known as Long COVID, where their symptoms linger indefinitely. Many of these children were previously healthy with no underlying conditions. Our State Government has hindered our districts' ability to make decisions that will minimize sickness and suffering to our children and throughout our communities. Please join us in fighting to protect ALL children, school employees and citizens of our great State.
"We can mitigate the risk to our teachers and students by being intentional and being smart. There’s not one person standing here today that will not support every possible investment in the health and safety of our citizens, including our children. We are all on the same team and we all have the same goal and that is to protect and educate our children."
"Whatever is necessary to make it safe, to make it comfortable in that school, will be provided,"
"A local ordinance by a local town who knows their local people and the local businesses and the local dangers that’s where that enforcement and that’s where that effort ought to be but the mask, we know, is one way to reduce the spread of the virus and people ought to wear them."
"It is the district, each district that must craft their own reopening plans."
-All quotes credited to Henry McMaster July15, 2020
See this post for more information on data sources:
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/lots-of-questions-from-parents-heres?fbclid=IwAR25uM_cIi0QxuaDlLnCWopCP9FJiqGAglUcOeJEybwMlMRL3FCX_hVJHtA
Image:
Image of boy with mask from Adobe Stock