Masking For Money: How Oklahoma Public Schools Want To Subvert State And Local Authority For Federal Funds

Friday, August 27 (2021), I was sent a screen shot of a document from the Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH) that included masking 'guidance' which contradicted Oklahoma's SB658 (the bill to allow freedom of choice regarding student masking in all Oklahoma schools but private k-12) and was told that the OSDH had issued new/current (8/21) masking/quarantine guidelines to schools.

Because the document was sent to me by someone I trusted implicitly, I didn't think twice about posting it to my Facebook page. Of course, people saw it and were upset. 

Unfortunately, the document I posted was NOT CURRENT, making the post WRONG.

Though my source and I had tried to find both a date on the document and the origin of the document, we were unable to find either, until late Saturday afternoon.

Of course the post was already live so I had to pull the post and apologize for posting incorrect information, but this embarrassing endeavor had some interesting results.

Here is the document I incorrectly posted as current (August 2021) and its location:

   

Please note that NOWHERE ON THIS DOCUMENT IS A DATE. 

Now, if you're a techy person, click on the hyperlink above and note that there is no way to find this document or the date via its URL. THAT is a huge problem. 

Why in the world is a state agency NOT DATING OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS or locating them in a way that is easily found by the public who pays for their services? 

Here is the page on which this document was found and it's location. Please note the highlighted area. THAT is the link to the document above.

Again, where is a date? In fact, the only way I pieced together the fact that this was not a current document is because I searched some of the language in the document and got several links (here and here) to a January 12th document on masking written by Governor Stitt and Oklahoma State Department of Health Commissioner Lance Frye. That's simply crazy.

Of course, though I knew I had posted incorrect information, my source was still being told that there was NEW (current/Aug 21) guidance being issued to schools regarding masking. 

After scouring the OSDH website and all the other links on this page, we were unable to find anything - UNTIL we went out to the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) website.

Here's the top of the page we found:

Here's the next portion of the page:

Unlike the OSDH, at least the OSDE CLEARLY DATES their documents. Clearly, there IS new masking guidance and it is located behind this link. Here are the documents:

The highlighted portion says that schools should use 'vaccination, consistent and correct mask wearing indoors, social distancing, cohorting and handwashing'. 

But I thought we created a law against forcing mask wearing? Why continue to push mask wearing? 

The link behind 'multiple layers of safety to prevent transmission' goes to a document that says that children 'rarely get severely ill from COVID-19', but goes on to - again - push 'consistent and correct mask wearing indoors' as part of the 'Layered Mitigation Strategy'.

This is the second page of the document:

The next highlighted portion explains everything. 

Oklahoma public schools are MONEY OBSESSED. 

In order for them to continue getting FEDERAL ARPA Funds, they must not only REPORT cases, but they must push MASKING! How do we know? The OSDE was sent a letter from Miguel E. Cardona of the Secretary of Education's office at the federal level. 

What did the letter say? Clink on the link to read directly, but it basically says that in order to get and keep federal ARPA funds, schools must create COVID-19 'safety' plans that mirror CDC guidance which includes "universal and correct wearing of masks". 

 

Isn't this basically schools giving parents - AND THE STATE - the big middle finger so they can get MORE FEDERAL MONEY? 

I'm not sure how we rationalize this any other way. 

Why else would Edmond Public Schools (EPS) School Board turn over all decisions for COVID-19 to Superintendent Angela Grunewald? 

So EPS could get around SB658 which says mask mandates cannot be created by, 

A board of education of a public school district or a technology center school district, the board of regents of an institution within The Oklahoma State System of Higher Education, the governing board of a private postsecondary educational institution, the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, the State Board of Education or the State Board of Career and Technology Education...

 No Superintendent is listed there. 

Wouldn't schools want to get around a law which the Feds have told the State infringes "upon a school district's authority" to order "universal and correct wearing of masks" so they could maintain their ARPA funding? 

I submit that YES, YES THEY WOULD. Money to public schools is everything. All you have to do to know this for sure is type in the word "funding" on this blog.

The tragedy is that it appears BOTH SCHOOL BOARDS AND SUPERINTENDENTS ARE IN ON IT! BOTH ENTITIES WANT TO SQUASH PARENTAL RIGHTS - and state law - IN ORDER TO GET MORE MONEY!

Here's the one wrinkle in the thinking of both state public schools and the feds: The CDC guidance that the links in the new state OSDE/OSDH guidance go to are here and here. 

This last link goes to the Guidance for COVID-19 Prevention in K-12 Schools which says THIS about MASKING: 

Due to the circulating and highly contagious Delta variant, CDC recommends universal indoor masking by all students (age 2 and older), staff, teachers, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.

Since when does a RECOMMENDATION SUPERCEDE STATE LAW? 

WHEN MONEY IS INVOLVED.

Though ROPE has spent years trying to warn parents about the fact that public schools are not in the business of educating children, but collecting funds to make their empires larger so that they can push more of their own liberal policies, parents have not seemed to understand this until confronted by schools forcing children to succumb to HEALTH RULES with which parents don't agree.

Please, parents, you will find ALL KINDS of information on this blog to help you assert your parental rights in your public school. Either, force your schools to work for you, or get out, but don't be fooled - schools don't care as much about your children, as they do their giant heaps of money with which they create more programs to indoctrinate your children.

Jenni White, Education Director