End the absurdity: My children are suffering from draconian COVID-19 rules at school

I went to a concert last weekend with about 6,000 unmasked adults crammed into one of Washington, D.C.’s nicest music venues. Earlier in the week, my wife and I could not attend our oldest daughter’s holiday performance at school because no guests were allowed. This is the absurdity of today’s COVID-19 theater.

We are nearing the end of the second year where adults have  imposed rules that hurt our children. But not all children. Most people who read this would be shocked at how Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, where I live, and other large union-influenced districts, are still treating children. 

They would be puzzled to hear how my daughter’s cafeteria has rows of TV trays set up next to tables so students all face one direction at lunch. I've seen it myself. Because school administrators apparently know a secret about air circulation. 

People in open counties across America would be confused to read the email we received from our elementary school last month acknowledging that if it dips below 45 degrees or snows, they’ll allow my 3rd grader to eat lunch indoors.

Families in school districts that have thankfully ignored the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and teacher unions would share condolences with my first grader who has never experienced a normal day of school.

Children are not at serious risk

There is real harm being inflicted, and we’re still doing it to the kids who were mostly spared from COVID-19 by the grace of God.

Days ago, a New York Times sub-headline read: “People 65 and older make up about three-quarters of the nation’s coronavirus death toll.” Are we as a society forcing the most vulnerable among us, senior citizens, to wear masks in public for seven hours a day? Of course not. Because seniors vote. And children do not.

School-aged children between the ages of 5 and 18 make up 535 deaths of the 800,000 we’ve lost in America since the beginning of the pandemic. That’s 0.067%. But school districts like mine continue to seek out excuses to their actions that harm them.

The excuses change: We don’t know enough about long COVID, or case rates are rising, or there is a new variant that led to the death of one adult in Great Britain. Anything to avoid doing the sensical thing and lifting these draconian measures.

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Now, vaccines are approved and available for children ages 5 and older. The irony is it seems there is an inverse relationship between how vaccinated a community is and the level of freedom our children can enjoy.

Fairfax County and counties around major metropolitan areas are some of the best vaccinated in the country. In Fairfax County, nearly 77% of children and adults age 5 and older have received at least one dose of a vaccine. Nearby Montgomery County, in Maryland, is near 100% for people age 12 and up. And yet these counties treat schools as if we live in a pre-vaccine era.

All three of my children are vaccinated. But instead of allowing them to take off their masks, there’s a selfies station at a county vaccination site so adults can pat themselves on the back and then get back to ignoring the crisis our kids are experiencing.

Ignoring COVID data is what these school systems have done best, so it’s no surprise that they also want to ignore the other numbers. Pediatric emergency room visits for mental health emergencies have spiked. So have suicide attempts, up 51% in adolescent girls compared to 2019. Reading and math scores are plummeting, especially among those with special needs or who are disadvantaged.

How to we get out of this cycle?

Proponents like to say "what’s the harm" and "kids are resilient" and, yes, my kids are. But not all kids.

And beyond a pep talk, I think parents are owed metrics for when masks are and are not necessary. Because here in Fairfax County, it seems to parents like me that our leaders are simply sticking their finger in the political wind.

The Virginia governor has his own mask mandate, but the county government mandates masks as well. There are no specific guidelines for what is needed for them to lift a mask mandate .

These are but some of the many good reasons families are leaving in droves. More than 46,000 fewer students are enrolled in Virginia public schools since before the pandemic, with Fairfax experiencing the biggest drop. FCPS lost more than 10,000 students or 5.4% of its student population. The more this mess goes on, the worse those numbers will get.

People ask me why we haven’t left yet. There are many reasons. For one, the waiting lists for private schools in our area are long. Our early misplaced faith in our schools put us behind the eight ball.

But I also love our community and neighborhood that actually got us through the pandemic, with our support system and pods and friends. I don’t want to leave. And I do love our school, and my kids' teachers. I want them to succeed.

I believe in public education. But at some point I’m not leaving the schools, they’re leaving me.

Kids don’t vote. But parents do. And Virginia parents sent a resounding message in November by electing Glenn Youngkin as governor with a historic education mandate. January cannot come soon enough.

But the governor-elect will not be able to reverse the lunacy single-handily on day one. We must keep shining a light on the absurdity of our schools in the hope that the ensuing embarrassment will finally create the change our children need.

Rory Cooper is the parent of three elementary school students in Fairfax County, Virginia, and is a partner at Purple Strategies. He served as communications director for former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).