BROWNSTOWN — During its September meeting, the Brownstown Central Community School Corp. board of school trustees amended the COVID-19 reopening plan to include protocol for the red advisory level.

If Jackson County is at that level for the positivity rate of community spread of the virus, all students are required to wear masks while at school.

Once some parents learned that was approved on a 5-2 vote, they expressed their thoughts with each other, leading to a petition being created and receiving more than 300 signatures.

During the board’s October meeting Tuesday night, nearly every seat in the audience was filled, including seven people who signed in to address the board.

Melissa and Sami Abdulbari, David Oakes, Whitney Fritz, Bradi Sutherland, Brittany Darlage and Melissa Gray all spoke against the mask policy.

All of them but Gray left after learning the board wasn’t going to take any action on the policy.

“Knock it off. Give us freedom to breathe oxygen,” Sami Abdulbari said, referencing Oakes using a meter to determine the carbon dioxide students take in while wearing a mask. “That meter just blew my mind, and if it didn’t you, God be with you, all right? Have a good night.”

Sami said he can’t fathom how school officials think it’s OK to let his two children “sit there all day long and suck in CO2.”

“I’m standing here in front of you today asking you — and I’m almost to the point of demanding it — take those face diapers off my children. It’s that simple,” he said. “If you voted for my 7-year-old and my 15-year-old to wear that, I’ve lost a lot of respect for you, and I know the majority on this panel right now. If you voted no, by God, I’ll tell you what, much respect. Thank you for standing up for just that much freedom.”

During the Sept. 14 meeting, trustees Clayton Beard and David Martin cast the lone nay votes.

Superintendent Tim Taylor’s recommendation came after the corporation received an executive order from Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb encouraging masking and a request from the Jackson County Health Department to require masking.

Taylor said masks would not be required at school athletic events since those are optional activities. School attendance, on the other hand, is governed by compulsory attendance laws.

Following the board’s action, students were encouraged to wear masks in the school buildings from Sept. 15 to 17 and then were required starting Sept. 20 as long as the county remained at the red advisory level.

On Sept. 22, however, the county moved down to orange, and it has remained there ever since. That means Brownstown students have only been required to wear masks for three days.

Taylor said during that time, no students were sent home from school as close contacts, and the number of positive cases has continued to improve since then. As of Tuesday, he said the corporation had zero positive cases, 10 students out as close contacts that occurred outside of school and two quarantined for symptoms.

That’s compared to one point when BCCSC had as many as 34 positive cases and 247 out for some type of COVID-related absence.

“COVID-19 numbers have improved drastically,” Taylor said. “I think things are waning. I think things are getting better.”

When Fritz spoke to the board, she said the policy change had “everything to do with money and nothing to do with what’s best for our children’s health.”

“All COVID-19 masks are authorized, not approved or licensed, by the federal government,” she said. “They are emergency use authorization only. EUA products are by definition experimental and thus require the right to refuse. Under the Nuremberg Code, no one may be coerced to participate in a medical experiment. Consent of the individual is absolutely essential. You are in violation of that code.”

As valedictorian of the Brownstown Central High School Class of 2009 and recipient of 12 varsity letters, Fritz said she worked very hard in school and didn’t do that for her own self-satisfaction.

“I did this knowing my children would one day attend Brownstown, thinking you all would protect my children’s freedom and our freedoms as parents to make the best decisions for our children to thrive inside and outside of the classroom,” she said. “I never imagined I would have to be up here fighting to protect our freedoms in front of each of you.”

Fritz said it’s her duty as a parent to research and question everything, not blindly trust.

“Doctors are not the authority. School corporations are not the authority. The government is not the authority. Parents are,” she said before holding up a picture of her 5-year-old son and sharing how wearing a mask negatively impacts his ability to learn and communicate.

She said the corporation implemented a mask mandate without any alternative options for students.

“This has nothing to do with politics, and it has everything to do with freedom, civil rights and humanity,” Fritz said. “If you start giving up little freedoms or taking them away a little bit at a time, eventually, you will wake up in a world with no freedom which you created, and our kids will inherit the same world because you complied. Let’s take pride in our freedom and see Brownstown school corporation with a backbone that sets the standard which stands for freedom, humanity and human rights.”

Sutherland, a mother of two Brownstown Elementary School students, asked the board to lift the mask requirement and give each student a choice.

“Masks should be optional,” she said. “Kids should be encouraged to have a choice. There will be a time in our children’s lives they will have to make a decision every day. These decisions are a part of living. Encourage them to stand up for what they believe instead of falling for the demands of society.”

Sutherland said the school board is in charge of public education, not public health.

“The health of my children is my responsibility, a parental responsibility,” she said. “The school board’s mask requirement has gone too far. You, the educators, are taking away my rights as a parent by making health decisions for my children without me having a choice in this matter. What’s next? Where will you stop? When will you say it’s enough? Where will you draw the line?”

She said she prays students stay safe, healthy and in school.

“You say this is to protect our kids. That’s not your call to do,” Sutherland told the board. “God is in control of everyone. Get out of your darkness, unmask our kids. They were born for this time, but they have a choice every single day, not just the day the (state) health department says that they can be free.”

Darlage said the board’s vote in September didn’t allow the community the chance to speak on behalf of those being affected by the change. She said the petition signatures represent freedom.

“The choice to wear a mask or to go unmasked, not only is it our human right to make the choices that affect our bodies, but it’s our parental responsibilities to make the best decision on behalf of our children,” she said. “The choice to mask a student should not be decided upon by the school staff, the superintendent or you board members.”

Mandating students to wear a mask is not going to put an end to the flu, common cold or COVID-19, Darlage said.

“The Bible clearly states there is a time for everything — a time to be born and a time to die,” she said. “Our fate is not determined by a mask.”

Gray, the parent of a middle-schooler, said masks haven’t been mandated in recent years when children died from the flu, and they have never been considered by the school board during any past flu season.

“This is because our government has never issued a scare campaign before,” she said. “This is a fear pandemic. They want to teach our children to fear. They want them to think that everyone around them is sick and to even believe the air they breathe is toxic.”

She said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 605 out of 73 million American children under 18 have died of COVID since the pandemic started in March 2020.

“You are forcing completely healthy children to wear a mask to protect them from a virus that they have a better than 99.2% chance of surviving,” Gray said.

Wearing a mask should be an individual choice, she said.

“I’m very disappointed in this board,” Gray said. “By not having the boldness to vote your conscience on this issue, you have chosen to side with the spirits of power and greed. You have sacrificed the rights of parents and students and school staff for your own political and financial protections.”

Board President Scott Shade said the board appreciates the comments and concerns, and he would share his phone number with anyone who wanted to talk more about it.

Taylor later thanked Gray for being the only speaker to stay for the whole meeting.

“You got to hear about a lot of other things we do,” Taylor told Gray. “This is a really good group of people, and the school corporation has done a lot of really good things, and I just appreciate you staying and getting a chance to hear some of that.

“I want to thank everyone for their understanding and support,” he added. “I know sometimes, they have different views on everything, but that’s part of what we do is hear things and make the best decisions we can and to keep our students and staff safe — safety and overall health as our main priorities.”