Shoes Left Outside Marlboro School In Vaccine Mandate Protest

MARLBORO, NJ — Hundreds of shoes were placed outside the Marlboro Memorial Middle School on Tuesday, ahead of the last Board of Education meeting.

The silent protest was organized by a group of local parents with the help of New Jersey for Medical Freedom, a group against vaccine mandates.

Next to the shoes, people passing by could read messages like "Vaccines are harmful, no mandate," "Don't make us leave our school" and "This country was built on freedom."
There were at least 250 pairs, according to one of the organizers, Lisa Johnson.

"We don't want to lose parental rights and parental choice and now medical freedom for our children," Johnson, told Patch. "It's one thing to be vaccinated yourself. It's another thing to be told that you have to vaccinate your children."

Even though there is currently no vaccination mandate, some of the parents fear that one might be enforced in the future.

"We're trying to get ahead of the game, we're trying to make sure the BOE and the governor (Phil Murphy) know that if one is put into place that we will pull our children from the education system."

Johnson said that she wasn't anti-vaccine or anti-mask, but that some of the parents felt that policies being considered by the district regarding different quarantine times for vaccinated and unvacinated children were "discriminatory."

Johnson referred to an email sent out to all parents in the district asking parents who choose to vaccinate their children to voluntarily send proof of vaccination to the school.

"This information will be very helpful when implementing school guidance from the New Jersey Department of Health," the email read. "If a student is fully vaccinated and deemed a close contact to someone diagnosed with COVID-19, the fully vaccinated student would not be required to quarantine as long as he/she does not have any symptoms."

Later during the meeting, Board of Education members agreed they would not adopt the quarantine policy recommended by the NJ Department of Health and revisit the issue in January depending on how the situation progresses until then.

"We are over quarantining to the nth degree. It's enough. The time has come to make a formal change," said Dr. Eric Hibbs, Superintendent of the Marlboro School District, adding: "As a practice, we don't discriminate against children."

Similar to Tuesday's protest, other parents groups in towns like Middletown and Holmdel have staged "shoe drops" to express their fears around mask and vaccine mandates.
Parents left about 500 pairs of shoes in front of Middletown High School North at the end of November and in Holmdel about 750 of them lined the entrance to Holmdel High School.

"These protests are all about parents who are aligned with the idea that if we're forced to give the vaccine we're pulling our children from the education system," Johnson said.

In Middletown and Holmdel, some parents were upset to see the shoes they had placed were removed by staff overnight, before they had the chance to be seen by members of the school community, but this time they were left right before everyone made their entrance to the school for the meeting.

"To be honest the Superintendent was extremely polite and said thank you for not blocking the walkway and we respect your opinions," Johnson said. "A lot of the folks acknowledge the shoe protests outside and a lot of the conversation inside was more around quarantine and guidelines."

As variant Omnicron spreads through New Jersey, Monmouth County has seen a spike in COVID-19 cases. Over the weekend, 2,036 Additional new COVID-19 cases were registered in Monmouth County, with five new deaths related to the virus.

"In terms of masking, I think that we're already putting out children in risk by constantly wearing the masks all day in school," Johnson said."I think the risk of COVID is much less for children and I don't think that's something that they need to be wearing all day in school."

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