Idaho Dispatch

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31% of West Ada Students Opt Out of Masking Requirement

By • August 30, 2021

School is back in session, and one of the primary talks among students, parents, teachers, citizens, and healthcare workers is how to address masking in Idaho schools.

The West Ada School District, Idaho’s largest school district, set a policy that masks are required for students. However, the policy also said that students could opt out by having their parents fill out a form and turn it into the school district.

This morning, WASD told Idaho Dispatch that 31% of students have opted out of the masking requirement.

The current number of registered students in WASD is 40,162, according to Charalee Jackson, the Chief Communications Officer for WASD. Based on the percentage given to Idaho Dispatch, approximately 12,450 students have opted out of the masking requirement.

Idaho Dispatch previously covered the first day that parents were standing in line at the school district to turn in the form.

One of the parents that Idaho Dispatch spoke to on condition of anonymity told us they wanted to make health decisions for their children and didn’t feel it was the place of the schools to do so.

Here is what the parent told Idaho Dispatch specifically,

We decided to opt out of the mask guidelines due to overwhelming scientific evidence that doesn’t support the need for kids to wear masks. The science shows that masks are actually more harmful for kids to wear, and it is our duty as parents to make the health decisions for our children…not the school board.

Some individuals do not agree with students being able to opt out of the masking requirement.

Brad Bigford is a nurse practitioner in Boise. He took to Twitter to disapprove of the WASD’s decision and said he is grateful that the Boise School District where his kids go to school does require them. Here is what Bigford said:

I am thankful my children are in Boise School District where my community cares about one another. I am sad for those families in West Ada who care about their community but their community doesn’t care about them.

Idaho Dispatch will continue to monitor the number of individuals who opt out of the masking requirement and keep our readers updated.

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Tags: Brad Bigford, Face Covering, Mask Requirement, Masks, West Ada School District

12 thoughts on “31% of West Ada Students Opt Out of Masking Requirement

  1. Nurse practitioner Brad Bigford thinks suffocating children is compassionate, along with 69% of West Ada parents. Thank goodness I pulled my kids out of the public school system years ago!

    1. It is…look at the COVID world map on CDC website; it’s a red blob…clothes masks do not stop the spread of COVID! How about Biden stop the with the open boarders….thousands of COVID positive illegal immigrants continue to cross the boarders….

  2. 31% of the students\parents opted out. What percent of students simply aren’t wearing masks? My middle school son, the first day of school, was estimating that about 50% of the students were not wearing masks at his middle school.

    If barriers were not put in place to make it difficult to submit the opt-out numbers would be higher.

  3. Pull up photos of 1918 Spanish Flu and there will be endless photos of people virtue signaling their mask wearing. During that time there also were many posters put up in public places advising people to wear a mask. The end result was that high numbers of people died of pneumonia because the masks became nice little greenhouses to grow pathogens.
    Just as a side note – I was in Target a month or so ago. I watched a woman pull down her mask to pick her nose and then replace it back on her face.

  4. Mask can only last a maximum of 2 hours, then they get saturated! Reusing them or continued useage
    Doesn’t do any good! Cloth masks don’t work either. It’s all a false sense of protection.
    And what Linda M said! From now on, when and if you see a mask ask when did they Last changed it out?

    1. Linda S.,
      You are so right about the saturation level of masks. I wonder about the breakdown of material in the disposable masks from the moisture and then people breath in micro particles of plastic and paper. The cloth ones are completely unhealthy because too many people never think of washing them.
      My sister was a critical care RN for decades. She is like you, in that she can think logically about masks. It is anecdotal but a surgeon’s patients contracted infections while other surgeon’s in that hospital did not contract the same type of infections. After eliminating various other possibilities, they realized that he had chronic sinus infections. The mask did not protect his patients from his sinus infections.

  5. It’s their choice….
    Your choice, I’m sure you already got the jabs n more jabs coming soon. Plus wearing the thin or cloth mask for protection
    But if you aren’t wearing any eye protection…. your not protected. Also, you’ll need to wear gloves just incase you touch something with the covid flu on it….. let’s not judge or you shall be judge 7 times more.

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