As a parent, as well as a provider who works in an emergency department, I congratulate the Anchorage School District School Board for recommending universal masking this fall. I also shake my head at the foolishness of Dave Donley.
Fortunately, his ill-conceived and clearly political motion to not allow masks was met with not one other board member even seconding his notion to begin a debate. Dave Donley and his ilk — Assembly member Jamie Allard, Sen. Lora Reinbold and Mayor Dave Bronson — all appear to be more interested in getting into the news cycle than protecting the residents of Anchorage, especially our children.
Donley made claims he likely heard from other anti-maskers, such as how masking causes “increased suicides, mental health damage to our children directly caused by mask mandates, and educational loss.” As a mental health professional with almost 20 years of experience, and one who has continued to work with adolescents in the ED setting, I have seen no evidence of that. In fact, when I am at my children’s school — both elementary and middle — I see kids wearing masks with no apparent distress.
Kids have become very accustomed to this, and there doesn’t seem to be the issues he touts as prevalent. When these kids see their teachers, school workers and especially parents wearing a mask to protect others, they will follow suit. But when we have the aforementioned “leaders,” none of whom have medical training, making proclamations based on their steady digest of talk radio and right-wing TV news, they undermine established practices and science.
Kids have adapted, as all of us have, to wearing masks. Every school-aged child I have talked to this past year said they were glad to be back in school, and wearing a mask was not their preference but they understood why. It’s not a sacrifice for the kids if it keeps them, their peers and their families safe. Encouraging them not to is reckless, dangerous and wrong. If Donley cares about kids as much as he proclaims, then he should save his dangerous rhetoric for his unmasked and unvaccinated friends and families, and let science dictate ASD policy.
— Darrel Hamel
Eagle River
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