AUGUST 20, 2021, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
Mask conversation turns
heated at SK board meeting
BY HERB SWETT
For the Keizertimes
“The real fi ght should be between
COVID and us.”
So said Satya Chandragiri, a board
member of Salem-Keizer School Public
Schools, at a school board meeting on
Tuesday, Aug. 10.
His comment came at the end of a
series of audience comments about
masks being required in schools.
Heated arguments came from people
on both sides of the issue.
The fi rst speaker from the audience
was Ronnie Daniels of Sheridan, who
remarked that the Centers for Disease
Control (CDC) was “playing politics”
with the pandemic, upsetting students
and even leading to a few suicides.
“Give these kids a chance,” he said.
Of the succession of speakers who
followed, about half contended that
masks were hindering and even endan-
gering some children, and that the
across-the-board policy from Gov. Kate
Brown for state employees, which was
announced just days after the meeting,
was unsuitable for schools.
Speakers on the other side of the
issue, including leaders of the Salem-
Keizer Coalition for Equality, said
reasons for requiring masks included
emotional and social development.
One leader of that group, Annalivia
Palazzo-Angullo, raised another point,
that immigration offi cials had fright-
ened away many Hispanic students by
accessing student records without seek-
ing permission from Superintendent
Christy Perry or General Counsel Paul
Dakopolos. She commended Perry
and her team for persuading the board
to adopt the policy of protecting stu-
dents from “unreasonable searches and
seizures.”
Several from the audience accused
certain board members who opposed
requiring masks for all students of
being white supremacists. They saw the
proposal for not requiring masks for all
as unfair to minorities.
Some of the comments were so
infl ammatory that Osvaldo Avila, the
board chair, told audience members to
be respectful in their comments.
The period for audience comments
ran so long that the board soon voted
to postpone the other agenda matters
besides routine ones to its Aug. 24
meeting, which normally would be only
a work session.
The board also reappointed its legal
counsel, the Salem law fi rm Garrett
Hemann Robertson as counsel, to be
represented by Paul Dakopolos or in
his absence Rebekah Jacobson.
Grants accepted by the board were
$986,086 from the Oregon Department
of Human Services for the Youth
Transition Program, which helps stu-
dents with disabilities; $912,000 from
the state Department of Environmental
Quality to replace 20 school buses;
$539,122 from the Oregon Department
of Education, in turn from federal
Every Student Success Act funds; and
$364,116 from ODE for summer school
programs for migrant students.
Personnel actions included the fol-
lowing from the McNary High School
attendance area:
• Temporary full-time contracts:
Rubi Hovenden, Kennedy Elementary
School; Larry Keeker, McNary.
• First-year probation full-time:
Lisa Best, Maggie Flood, Kennedy;
Katherine Carlgren, Janet Killam,
Haley Lehman, Kammie Rivera,
Cummings Elementary School; Jamie
Gilman, Whiteaker Middle School;
Jonathan Cortez, Morgan McQuade,
Ana Solorio Diaz, McNary.
• Resignations: Karen Biben,
Whiteaker; Erin Crauder, Claggett
Creek Middle School; Natalee Dagan-
Rothstein, Stephanie Meeks, Gubser
Elementary School.
The Board will hold its August work
session at the new agriculture complex
of Chemeketa Community College,
45th Avenue and Fire Protection Way
on the Salem Campus.