A middle school teacher from the state of Virginia drew outrage after being seen taping a mask to students face in a viral image. The vitality of the incident forced an apology from the district.
The incident took place at Pennfield Middle School in Hatfield. The image was first spread on a Facebook group called “North Penn Stronger Together.” Parents commented under the post infuriated.
“Pro-mask or anti-mask, I hope we can all agree that taping masks to children’s faces crosses the LINE. This was not a joke for the child or the parents,” NPST said in their post.
The organization also encouraged parents and members of the community to let their voices be heard at public board meetings.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident, and similar occurrences have happened over the past two years,
A father from Florida has accused educators at an elementary school of forcing his 7-year-old daughter with Down Syndrome to wear a mask by tying it to her head for six weeks in October.
Jeffery Steele, the father of Sofia Steele, explained that the seven-year-old girl is nonverbal and has an enlarged tongue. He told Fox News that he only found out about what the school was doing when Sofia got off the bus on Oct. 7 with a mask, soaked from saliva and tied to her head with a nylon string.
The tied mask posed a particular risk to Sofia, because, on top of suffering from Down syndrome, she is also non-verbal. The 7-year-old has an enlarged tongue, is non-verbal, and breathes through her mouth.
Parents should not have to live in fear of the trauma that teachers may be inflicting upon their children every day as they attend public school.