By Nadia Mansour
Eight-year-old CaIysta Meletis-McDowell witnessed an issue and immediately sprung to action in regards to mandatory mask wearing for all grades in the schools. Out of her class of 22 students, only three were wearing masks at school.
“I wanted to see more people wearing masks in my classroom," Meletis-McDowell said.
CaIysta’s mother, Zoe Meletis, lent her daughter a helping hand to get the word out to a greater audience in a COVID-19 friendly way.
“When Calysta started the petition, she was going to bring it to school," says Meletis.
The fear was sharing it around, so Meletis helped her daughter start an online petition to garner support from the community.
Their goal is 500 signatures and, so far, the support from the community has been evident. As of March 7, 493 signatures were in support of having mandatory masks for all grades, with the consideration of medical exceptions. The petition can be found here.
“Why do I have to wear a mask everywhere else, but the place where I spend most of my time, I don’t?” said Meletis, speaking to the disconnect elementary kids are witnessing,
“Children are vectors…they bring home lots of colds, we are pretending they have this little learning group bubble and so it's okay that they don't wear masks," she added.
Evidence suggests that children over 10 are just as likely to be infected and to infect others. Experts warn that though there is a lack of reliable research on younger children, underestimating their susceptibility could be a mistake.
“There is no good argument against requiring masks,” Meletis said. “The teachers union is in favour and the World Health Organization says that children over the age of two should be masked when they can’t socially distance.”
Meletis attended several School District No. 57 (SD57) board meetings in hopes of amassing support from officials. After some time, the school board responded to Meletis’s claims with a statement that they would continue to follow the provincial regulations set in place.
“The letter was disappointing…it’s not true that the school board always has to follow in line, they can be brave and take additional measures," Meletis explains on how she felt upon receiving the response from the school board.
As she points out, SD57 did alter it’s COVID-19 protocols to include mandatory masks at school for all teachers following pressure from the teachers union.
Meletis believes that the school boards efforts “are sending a message to kids and families that they matter less… [and that] the actors [of the] school board do not need to be responsive to all members of the community, they only need to be responsive to the province."
Meletis and her daughter remain hopeful that this issue will stay in the public eye and continue to garner attention from policy makers and health officials.
Listen to the interview on CFUR-FM: