Ripon Parents Protest Enmasse Before School Board Meeting

Some 60 irritated parents protested the wearing of masks in classroom settings by their students at the

Signs used during recent RUSD Board Meeting protest.

Ripon Unified School District Board meeting Tuesday evening citing mental health concerns for their children by the end of their school days.

Mirah Brooks told of her concerns for her three kids and those of others who were being forced to cover their faces and their smiles while they attempt to focus on their studies in school as well as their limited social interactions with other children and classmates, not to mention their teachers..

Brooks and other parents held banners and placards as they rallied outside the civic center meeting room before entering the school board session where the only board member wearing a mask was its chairman Kit Oase.

Brooks said that while the parent numbers at the meeting were only about 60, there are hundreds in the community who share the group’s concerns about the masks that have been said to be unreliable with the porosity of the cloth a thousand times larger than the feared virus making them totally ineffective, as they breathe their own carbon dioxide.

‘It teaches our children how NOT to fight for their freedoms,” she quipped. “It’s the mental aspect of the setting -- all day long in class and not seeing others smile and losing their identities and that of other children,” Brooks said.

She, and other parents, have opened a parent co-op for children from prekindergarten to high school freshmen in lieu of traditional Ripon schools -- designed for like-minded families who want to give their children social opportunities including group prayer and saluting the Flag.

The off-campus co-op classroom is offering instruction in English, Math, Science, and History in their program that facilitates social opportunities throughout the group.

“It’s going to take everyday Americans to make a difference,” she said. “People of every status level need to step up to protect our civil liberties,” she noted. It was also noted by one at the meeting that the only way their protest might be acknowledged is for them all to form a car caravan to the governor’s office in Sacramento.

The right to go to school without masks should be the parents choice by the end of the day, she argued. The board quickly ordered a recess as the parents filed out of the building.