Anti-Maskers Disrupt, Delay Gwinnett County School Board Meeting

GWINNETT COUNTY, GA — The Gwinnett County school board’s monthly meeting was disrupted Thursday night by a contentious standoff over who should and shouldn’t wear masks.

At the start of the meeting, Board of Education Chair Everton Blair spelled out the district’s policy: For now, anyone in a Gwinnett County Public Schools facility has to mask up or get out. He then recessed the meeting for five minutes to give those not wearing masks a chance to comply or leave, according to The Gwinnett Daily Post.

Five minutes later, mask-free parents — some wearing “unmask our children” T-shirts — were still in the audience. After pleas from the Gwinnett school board to mask up were met with anger from unmasked audience members, the board eventually retreated to the room where it normally holds its work sessions to conduct the main meeting. Those still in the board room were left to watch on a TV screen.

When the board returned to the main room for public comment, some audience members shouted “cowards” at them.

In April, video of a parent’s anti-mask speech to the Gwinnett County Board of Education went viral and eventually caught the attention of Fox News. Since then, Courtney Ann Taylor has made an online petition out of it, demanding that the school board “make masks optional for all children” and “stop trying to parent our children for us.” As of Friday, the petition had nearly 3,300 signatures.

This is Courtney Ann Taylor, a mother in Georgia. She’s one of the many parents who’ve HAD IT with mask mandates, especially for young kids in school.

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— Errol Webber (@ErrolWebber) April 22, 2021

Read about the school board meeting in The Gwinnett Daily Post.