Last night, the Central Bucks School Board held a meeting to decide on masking for the upcoming school year. Parents started lining up outside prior to the meeting. Many more people were there, than were allowed to speak. The first 30 in line got a chance to speak. 15 for, 15 against. On the pro-mask side, parents talked about protecting kids and protecting the community. On the anti-mask side, one parent likened children masking to child abuse. The result?
Central Bucks school board voted 5-4 to keep masking optional.
In situations like this, it’s important to remind everyone that school board is elected at municipal elections. Municipal election years don’t get the voter turnout of the big election cycles. The positions that are elected in municipal elections are the positions that affect your daily life. What happens in your school district? What happens locally with your sewers, roads, local services, zoning?
This year in Central Bucks School District, there are five school board seats up for election. School Director positions are technically non-partisan, so candidates can cross-file on both the democratic ticket and the republican ticket, if they have enough nominating signatures. What that means for the average voter is that you need to do your homework, and get out and vote in municipal elections.
If there is one thing that the pandemic has taught us, it’s that civic engagement is important. Here is a run-down of school director races here in Bucks County this year. Central Bucks School District will be reviewing the mask mandate at their meeting again next week.
https://patch.com/pennsylvania/doylestown/central-bucks-keeps-mask-optional-policy-start-school
