Back in May, I was asked by the publisher if I would continue to contribute articles on a volunteer basis once my contract with the Highland CSD was completed.  It was suggested that I should reflect upon differences that I have experienced as a new resident in California versus my lifetime in Iowa.  The perspective I thought I would be writing about back in late May and early June certainly has changed to the current time frame.

It is no secret that each state addressed the COVID-19 pandemic in different ways.  My daughter teaches in California, and I have completed a couple of coaching assignments for the local school district. The districts in California went completely online in February 2020 and remained so throughout the rest of the calendar year. All athletics for the remainder of the 2020 school year were cancelled and nothing resumed until the spring of 2021.

Learning evolved to a hybrid model after the first of the year and remained throughout the end of the school year. California approached the pandemic very conservatively and maintained a mask requirement throughout the remainder of the 2020-2021 school year for in-person learning.

Many of us believed in June that this all was in the rearview mirror throughout the country. California lifted all restrictions on June 15. I remember going to Las Vegas in June, where I met up with several friends from Iowa, and thinking how nice it was to be out in public. It was the first time I had been in a public setting without mask in over 14 months. My friends from Iowa certainly had not been living in such a restrictive environment and didn’t quite have the same feeling of liberation as I had experienced. I also enjoyed a week of freedom in San Diego later that month. I attended the “reopening” day at a San Diego Padres game with a sellout crowd in Petco Park. 

It is now August 2021, and the Delta variant has arrived. It was really ironic that a week ago when I was contacted by two former peers of mine from different states. The first was a Superintendent from Iowa who was very frustrated with phone calls and complaints that he and his Board were receiving on the lack of a mask mandate in their schools. Iowa, like six other states, has a Governor who has implemented a ban on mask mandates.

It was a little over an hour later that I received a call from a peer in Illinois. He has been receiving complaints and nasty phone calls over the fact that the Illinois Governor had implemented a mask mandate from schools. Neither of these individuals has a choice because the Governors had completely taken the decision out of their hands. It certainly appears to me that this is a no-win situation.

The California Governor has gone a step further. Besides the fact that the districts do have a mask mandate, they have also implemented a requirement that all teachers must be vaccinated by October 15. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the state teacher’s union has fully endorsed this policy.

I have been asked several times which approach I believe is the right one. I tend to be more conservative and tend toward protecting the health of our children, but the answer is I don’t believe either approach is right. The decision should be made by the people who have been elected to make decisions on behalf of their districts.

The situations in Kalona, Riverside, Washington, Iowa City, Des Moines, Ames, Sioux City or Fort Dodge could all be very different. I do not believe a Governor should make the decision for everyone. They should recommend based on the best and accurate information available.

I certainly don’t believe making threats to defund salaries or schools is appropriate. Let the districts address the issue based on what they feel is right for their students and their parents. Regardless, the decision will probably only have 50% support, but it should be made on the local level.