About 40 people showed up to the school board meeting on Aug. 19 and nine of them, including one student, continued to speak against the mask mandate for students and staff.

Nearly every person who spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting brought up the school board’s response to a special meeting held on Aug. 12, in which the school board ratified the mask mandate. Superintendent Emily Tracy had instituted it on Aug. 9.

Brown County High School junior Chase Austin, son of Principal Trent Austin, said that it was clear at the previous week’s meeting that the board had already made their decision before hearing from the crowd. “And that’s just not okay,” he said. “The meeting was merely a formality.

“At the board meeting last week it was very clear how much our community cares about this issue. They spent a lot of time preparing and made some very good points,” he said. “In return, you were rude and disrespectful. Not only were you on your phone while people were speaking, you also didn’t have the courtesy to discuss the information you were given.”

Several parents brought up the effect that masks have on their children’s development, not being able to see mouths or hear clear speech. One mother, Brooke Hunter, said that her children have struggled since the mask mandate has gone into effect. Her daughter, who she said was normally shy, told her that she didn’t think “anyone smiled at (her) all day” the first day of the mandate. “She said, ‘My teacher didn’t even smile at me.’ … That as a parent is very hard,” Hunter said.

Hunter said that after last week’s board meeting, she was disappointed she had to ask off work again to go to the Aug. 20 meeting.

“My boss asked me why I needed off again,” she said. “I just said, ‘The board didn’t listen to our voice.’ It broke me a little bit, because I adore our school. … I’m just asking for the choice, to be heard, that we as parents can decide.”

The board did not change its decision at last week’s meeting.

Last week, eight students tested positive for COVID-19 at four different schools, and school absence rates due to symptoms, positive tests or close-contact quarantines ranged from 19 percent at Van Buren Elementary to 4.1 percent at Helmsburg Elementary by Friday.

Tracy said at the Aug. 12 meeting that the wearing of masks prevents more students from being quarantined when a student around them tests positive, enabling more students to get in-person instruction.