Incompetence Unmasked

We had hoped debates over COVID-related issues in schools were long behind us.

We had hoped debates over COVID-related issues in schools were long behind us.

Unfortunately, deep into 2024, the Alberta Federation of Labour was still engaged in a lawsuit to give school boards the authority to slap masks back on kids.

Let’s be clear about this, they were arguing not that kids should be allowed to wear face-coverings to school - their right to do so has not been under scrutiny.

They were arguing that school boards should still be able to force all students to mask up, or be able to deny an education to a student who refuses.

A three-judge panel finally slapped them down and said they had no legal basis for their argument that school boards retain this authority.

But the unions weren’t wrong to think that school boards would use their authority to force masks on kids, even as the adults on the school boards themselves are never wearing masks now.

Masks are for the little people, literally.

We wouldn’t blame you for forgetting, but universal mask mandates in schools were actually a policy opposed by Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer, Deena Hinshaw.

Without any scientific expertise at their disposal that could possibly contradict the province’s top public health official, nearly every school board in Alberta ignored her recommendation and instituted universal mask mandates anyway.

One school board trustee in Edmonton, who is now an MLA, even asked their school board administration if it would be possible to vaccinate students at school without their parents’ consent.

Setting aside the extreme lack of ethics, such a policy probably would have backfired - preventing more students from being vaccinated as parents reacted to the overreach.

So, school boards were just listening to the particularly COVID-cautious parents at the expense of parents who favoured a lighter hand, right?

Not exactly!

A group of more COVID-cautious parents approached the Calgary Board of Education asking them if the parents themselves could pay for and install Corsi-Rosenthal boxes in their kids’ classrooms.

Corsi-Rosenthal boxes are a sort of do-it-yourself air purifier.

We now know that these parents were right to focus on air quality instead of masks, social distancing, washing desks, or remote learning as a solution - all options the Alberta Teachers’ Association and their allies in the Legislature preferred to focus on.

As usual, parents were the real experts in their own kids and what measures - if any - were appropriate to secure their own kids’ safety.

But the Calgary Board of Education told them “no”.

They actually argued it would be racist to install these Corsi-Rosental boxes, since the school board (no one else) reasoned that students of colour would be less likely to have parents funding these contraptions than white students.

This seems like a really bad joke, but it’s what actually happened.

Parents resorted to sneaking air-quality monitors in their kids’ backpacks, like they were some sort of contraband, and the school board reciprocated, treating them as contraband.

More COVID-cautious parents also found that when they voluntarily held their kids home when they had symptoms of illness, school boards all over the province were referring them to the Attendance Board (Alberta’s system for dealing with truancy enforcement outside of the courts).

Unfortunately, there was no way to send the Attendance Board after school boards that forced parents to hold their kids home from school when the parents wanted to send them.

As a reminder, we knew pretty early on that closing schools, while keeping bars, clubs, and casinos open, could not be supported by any rational policy-maker.

We knew then, but have ample supporting evidence now, that school closures would hurt kids worse than the virus could have.

We knew then, but have ample supporting evidence now, that children would experience significant developmental delays if they couldn’t see the faces of their peers and educators.

Many school boards closed outdoor playgrounds and shut down outdoor sports teams, even as outdoor activity would have helped kids be even safer from serious illness.

But school boards routinely adopted the most damaging policies available to them, even while rebuffing parents offering less damaging solutions and punishing parents taking personal responsibility.

This is one of the reasons the Alberta Parents’ Union exists.

Many parents, of every possible opinion on what COVID policy should look like, saw that school boards had become too big, too bureaucratic, and too distant for a regular parent to make their voice heard.

Of course, parents also noticed that policy discussion was often dominated by the concerns of adults employed by the education system - teachers, administrators, superintendents, but also politicians, union bosses, faculties of education, and educrats.

Parents expected the discussion to occasionally be dominated by the concerns of the kids the education system is meant to educate - and their best advocates, their parents.

School board elections are closer than you probably think: October 20th, 2025.

The issues facing school boards in 2025 through 2029 are unlikely to centre around a novel virus.

Whatever those issues are, though, it would be nice if our school boards would not select the most damaging policies available to them so predictably that unions could plan expensive litigation strategies around that assumption.

Without knowing what those issues will be, we can already predict that school board trustees who listen to parents will fare better than those treating us as the enemy.

Therefore, Alberta needs need trustees willing to listen to parents.

Our Executive Director has been invited by another advocacy organization to speak about this at school board information sessions in Westlock, Edmonton, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, and Calgary!

You can RSVP to attend one of these sessions and find out more here.

For the parents,

Jeff and the Alberta Parents’ Union team

P.S. Don’t see your town on the list of stops? We will partner with anyone, taking any opportunity to tell parents and their allies how to get more involved at the school board level. Reach out and we will come to your session too!

P.P.S. All this travel is expensive, so let us know who has the comfiest couch in your town and, of course, please consider making a donation.