Tensions boiled over during the Grant School Board’s Aug. 25 meeting after the board appeared to violate Oregon public meetings law in a closed-door executive session and the district superintendent sent a letter warning parents that students refusing to wear masks would be referred to online learning.

A frustrated congregation of parents asked the board why they shut the public out of the Aug. 19 meeting that parents had requested by holding an executive session instead of an open meeting.

School board chair Haley Walker told the parents the board was not prepared to discuss Gov. Kate Brown’s then-recent order that all educators, school staff and volunteers get vaccinated.

She said parents also wanted an answer about whether the district would follow the mask mandate, but after consulting with the district’s legal counsel, Walker said, the board came to the conclusion they did not have a decision to make.

“There wasn’t a decision to be made,” she said, “because we took an oath to uphold the law.”

Parents said, had they known the district intended to comply with the mask mandate, they would have pulled their children out of in-person classes and home-schooled them.

“It’s like you’re locked up behind closed doors, and you don’t want us to know what’s going on,” one parent told the board members. “And that’s awful as a parent.”

During the closed-door meeting, the board discussed local staffing and state policies and made a final decision to send a statement to parents and press regarding opening school, which are typically not allowed in executive session. The Eagle attended the session but is currently withholding the details of what was discussed at the behest of Superintendent Bret Uptmor.

Uptmor’s letter

In addition to the executive session, the audience said Uptmor’s Aug. 20 letter to parents was, in their opinion, “a letter of attack.” (Uptmor’s letter was separate from a statement released by the board that was published in the Aug. 25 edition.)

In the letter, Uptmor writes that following Brown’s mask mandate would allow schools to remain open for in-person learning.

He said students who do not want to wear a mask, or refuse to wear one because their parents told them not to wear one, would be referred to online learning.

He said students unwilling to wear a mask would have their parents contacted, and the district would make arrangements to enroll the student into an online school. The online component, Uptmor states, is a requirement as part of the mandate for students who are not willing to follow the mask order.

Uptmor asserted in the letter that the district would continue to fight for local control so that the decision to mandate masks could be a local one. Until that happens, he said, the district would follow the governor’s mandate.

He writes to the parents that the state’s hospitals are “currently overrun” with COVID-19 hospitalizations.

“It will be disappointing if our students are sent to school with the directive from parents to not wear a mask as politics has played enough of a role in our schools during this time of COVID,” he writes.

Uptmor said, while he wrote the letter, it was not his intent to offend people in the community.

“I don’t know yet how I can take that back and gain your trust again,” he said, “but that will be what I’m working towards.”

Uptmor apologized after the meeting in a separate letter posted on social media.

One parent told Uptmor, in the past, she felt “heard and understood” by him regardless of if she agreed with him. She said his letter stopped that dialogue.

She said he did not reply to an email she sent him, nor did the entire board reply to an email about the closed-door meeting.

“We are in this dark here,” she said.

John Day Educator’s Association

Cindy Dougharity-Spencer, a teacher at Grant Union High School and president of the John Day Educator’s Association, said the association supports teaching and student learning.

“We support freedom,” she said, “but we’re not going to jeopardize our livelihoods to violate mandates.”

According to the governor’s mandate, educators and administrators face stiff penalties, including losing their teaching license, for defying the order.

The association, Dougharity-Spencer said, supports taking preventive measures, including cleaning, testing and wearing face coverings, but with appropriate accommodations.

She told the audience that the teachers union is working on how to get accommodations for people who do not want to vaccinate.

“We don’t want to be the mask police,” she said. “We encourage activities that keep our kids in school, and our classes open, and everyone learning. We are trying to work together, but we are not willing to risk our licenses to be in violation.”

“We don’t want to be the mask police. We encourage activities that keep our kids in school, and our classes open, and everyone learning. We are trying to work together, but we are not willing to risk our licenses to be in violation.”

—Cindy Dougharity-Spencer, Grant Union High School teacher and John Day Educator’s Association member