Content Accordion

Public Comment 161
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Submitted by: Tricia Johnson

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: Please let parents decide what is best for their children. You decide how best to teach the curriculum. Let people decide if they want to wear masks or not. If my mask protects you, then you wear my mask as well and you’ll be fine. We do not want masks!
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Public Comment 170

Submitted by: Katrina Vanderhulst

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: I would like the board to strongly consider enacting a mask mandate in the schools for all staff and students, to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 that we are seeing in the community and in neighboring states due to the current variant. We know that masks help prevent the spread AND protect the wearer when all parties wear a mask. Many parents are afraid to attend the meetings and/or speak up regarding the wearing of masks, but we all worry about our children who are catching COVID at an alarming rate. The 0-20 age group has reported 9,864 new cases in a 10-day period according to AZ DHS. We are seeing several neighboring schools enact a mask mandate to keep their staff, students and families safe from this vicious virus. PLEASE do something to keep the members of your school safe.
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Submitted by: James Johnson

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: As a pediatric dentist, this is the wrong move. Let people decide. Kids come in with a nasty, gross masks to my office. They drop them on the floor, step on them, pick them up and put them back on. There’s more harm being done with masks than good. Let parents decide.
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Submitted by: Robin Coleman

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: I feel masks need to say optional. It is not acceptable for the school district to go against the law. Our children should be given the choice. It is our right as American’s to make our own Heath choices. By forcing masks will leave me no choice but to pull my children from school to alternative education. GPS is not the only open option.
Public Comment 182

Submitted by: Darin

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: I do not support forcing children to wear masks. The science supports that kids wearing masks has and will continue to be more harmful than the virus. We have lost more youth to increased suicide than we have to covid. Wearing masks all day also reduces the oxygen levels youth are able to intake and causes additional anxiety and stress. Science shows that children are also extremely low on contacting the virus, spreading the virus and in rare cases that they catch the virus their immune systems are able to easily handle the symptoms and effects and get through it easily. Leave masks optional and let those who want to wear them do it but don't force those who choose not to.
Public Comment 183

Submitted by: Steve W

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: Support Freedom. Support Parent Choice. Support Free Agency. Dictators and authoritarians are anti-freedom. Don't be a dictator. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Don't be a fool - The plight to mandate (dictate) masks and vaccines is not an exercise in 'safety' or altruism - it is an assault on our individual free agency bestowed by our Creator, and on our liberty and a significant strategic control towards socialism ----> communism. 2 Nephi 9:28
Public Comment 184
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Submitted by: Lena stum

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: Keeping masks optional allows for everyone’s needs to b met. Not getting covid is not the only need/concern for our children…mental health, learning and understanding in school, apprpriate social development, human connection, and many other factors are also important in to consider.
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Public Comment 187

Submitted by: Sommer Lee

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: This has never been about safety, this is about control and compliance. It is sick to make children wear masks. This is a gross overreach by the government and schools that I will not support. I am fighting for mine and my children’s freedom of choice. We should be able to choose whether we wear masks or vaccinate . You could have the greatest medicine or ever invented and it would still be unethical to force it on anyone else. I hope 91茄子 stands and puts an end to this Tyranny.
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Public Comment 189

Submitted by: Noah Cook

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: No masks mandate for us please. Any who Would like to wear them should wear them but let’s not put our kids through this again unless there’s been a proven study that unwashed snotty nosed face coverings helps at all at slowing the spread of Covid.
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Submitted by: Courtney Vance

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: The forced masking of children is inappropriate and unhealthy. There is no health benefit. Children get sick regardless of whether or not they are wearing masks. These same children go home and play with the same kids without masks. They go to lunch and eat without masks. The parents will not tolerate your forced control over their children. We will choose other alternatives. And we will speak with our wallets.
Public Comment 205

Submitted by: Daniel Gould

Live or Work in the District: No

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: No

Comment: Please leave the decision of mask wearing to the parents and children. My child had a difficult time making friends last year because it's hard to socialize and communicate with a covering on your face. Staff members have been or have had the opportunity to be vaccinated. Children are at low risk. There is no reason to mandate masks.
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Submitted by: Sara T Millett

Live or Work in the District: No

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: Please mandate masks at your schools. This is a simple way to protect teachers and staff and our community as a whole. While I may not live in your district, the choices you make affect me. If more people get sick because you do not require simple mitigation strategies, and those sick people use the limited medical resources available for our whole county and state, that affects me and the people in my community. It's not fair to your teachers and students to not be protecting them and I view it as spitting in the face of our overworked and understaffed medical community....
Public Comment 209

Submitted by: Amy Johansson

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: I have had 4 children Graduate from GHS - and I have lived in the GPS community for 23 years! If you want to continue to increase your enrollment~ you better keep masks optional for your students! Stop trying to get our children to break the law - which is official as of September 29th! Masks should be optional and if you keep pulling your crap like last year- more and more families will leave GPS! There are many other districts that are obeying the law and letting PARENTS decide what is best for their children! GPS used to be a district I would tell all my friends to come to- but I will not support a district that continues to let fear and politics get in the way of what is best for their students! PARENT CHOICE - wear a mask if you want but do not force others to do so!! Follow the LAW!!
Public Comment 210

Submitted by: Tyler Treece

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: Wearing of masks should be left to the family and individual. It is a personal choice. Mandating anything that takes away freedom and/or personal liberties does not support what this country was founded on. Just think for a minute, how many parents will be pulling their children from GPS permanently? There will be alternatives. Also, notice I haven’t even mentioned the science, unintended consequences about children being required to wear masks. Not to mention the time and resources to “enforce” such nonsensical measures. Stick to freedom! Freedom will gain you more support in the end.
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Submitted by: Julia Lohman

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: Please DO NOT require masks for the K-12 students. Please adhere to Gov. Ducey's Executive order and let the parents and students CHOOSE whether to send their children to school with masks or not. This is America and we have the freedom to choose! Vote NO to require masks for students and please allow it to continue to be optional and up to the students and parents to choose!!!!
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Submitted by: Jenna Kleiner

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: No one knows the health(physical, emotional, mental) needs of a child as well as their own parent. Please continue to support us parents in our efforts to keep our children safe the ways we know are best for them. Please also continue to support all of us in our freedom of choice as American citizens. Thank you
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Public Comment 231

Submitted by: Leda DeVlieger

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: I am writing to you as a concerned parent and educator and also as the sister of an ICU nurse. I have a 7th grader at Greenfield Junior High and a Junior at 91茄子 Classical Academy. I am also a teacher at Finley Farms Elementary. While masking numbers are fairly high at GCA among students and staff, they are not at GJHS or FFE. My 7th grader has received two exposure letters thus far. None of the administrators or her teachers wears a mask, very few students do. We have chosen to get tested despite being vaccinated and masking because it is the right thing to do for public health. While I have seen an increase in masking among adults at FFE, still far less than half do. The exposure I received at FFE was never put on the GPS dashboard. Just last week we had two teachers of our team of four out sick. They both tested and were negative for Covid, but neither was asked to show their test result to the nurse or admin upon their return. I have had 3 students out sick multiple days and none of them were required to show a negative test before returning. I have sent kids to the nurse with runny noses and coughs only to have them sent back to class. I have also heard from several friends that teach on other campuses that they have multiple Covid positive students and even close contacts aren’t being asked to quarantine (despite being unvaccinated). My sister has had patients as young as 7 with Covid in the ICU. It is clear not enough is being done to keep people safe and healthy. I am asking GPS to put the health and safety of our students and staff first with a simple mitigation, mask wearing. I am asking GPS to follow the the Maricopa County Department of Public Health directive requiring close contacts to quarantine (if not vaccinated and masked) and to make a real effort to identify these students and staff immediately and ensure they do not attend school until he quarantine period is over and they have a negative result. Follow the order put forth requiring that masks are worn on schools buses per CDC order as noted on page 3 of the MCDPH k-12 guidance (section 1.3). I am asking you to provide a safe working environment for me and all GPS staff as well as the students we serve by following all guidance by the CDC and MCDPH, rather than politicians. There are people that disagree. But we are constantly talking about data, best practices, and modeling. Shouldn’t our district do all of those things in this case? If we follow the data and best practices that will mean we will model mask wearing, ask our students to do the same, and follow the public health professionals during a public health crisis. I do these things already and I hope you all will join me. “What is right is not always popular or easy.”
Public Comment 232
Public Comment 233

Submitted by: Tammy

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: 91茄子 Public Schools will lose a lot of families to a second mask mandate. It has been shown by many studies the harm masks do to children. I also wanted to know what The 91茄子 District thinks about “Equity” being implemented in schools? MPS has adopted this method & parents are unaware because the word “equality” has been changed to “equity.”
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Public Comment 239

Submitted by: Sally

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: I am pro vaccine for everyone that can and pro mask if you choose. I am anti mandates especially for my children that are healthy and have had covid which presented itself as a slight fever for a day. Far less scary than the flu. I understand others are at risk. They should choose to mask and social distance where possible, maybe even choose online school. Masking all children will not make covid go away and has not proven beneficial. We need to move forward without fear and live our lives without forcing everyone to do something that will not make this go away and will cause other issues.
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