“Our daughter Sofia stepped off of the school bus with a mask tied to her face with a nylon rope. Sofia has Down’s Syndrome, and at seven years old, is nonverbal. Due to her condition, her tongue is enlarged. With the mask tied to her face, she was unable to breathe properly and unable to express her distress. My wife recognized Sofia’s panic, her face reddened from having her breathing restricted, and comforted Sofia after removing her mask and taking pictures of the rope tied around Sofia’s head to secure a mask to her face. The mask was totally wet from her saliva.”
“The school put Sofia’s life at risk. For what? Her teachers and the school principal know about Sofia’s condition, and we sent her to school assured that she would not be masked due to the danger it could pose to her. After focusing first on Sofia, and taking some time to control our rage and anger at the school and the teachers for having taken such cruel action, we confronted the school principal and the teacher the following week. At that meeting, they admitted to having tied the mask to Sofia’s face using the nylon rope and admitted that this has been happening without our knowledge since the mask policy was put in place. The school could not explain what drove them to such madness. Unbelievably, their concern at that meeting seemed to be to keep things quiet.”
“Even more shocking, the school violated the Brevard County School Board’s so-called “Emergency K-12 Face Covering Requirement” by masking Sofia. The policy says that face coverings shall not be required for children with IEP or 504 plans documenting medical, physical or psychological contraindications. By the plain language of the policy, we trusted that the school would not mask Sofia. The School District placed Sofia at Ocean Breeze Elementary because of their resources for children like Sofia with special needs. We thought when we put her on the bus each morning that they were looking after her, not abusing her. How wrong we were.”
