SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Pandemonium at a school district board meeting erupted amid news that Utah public schools will require masks through the end of the school year - forcing board members to adjourn and call police, a TV station reported.
The 30 to 40 protesting parents on Tuesday night “shouted down speakers, disrupted the meeting and became aggressive,” said Ben Horsley, spokesman for the Granite School District serving the Salt Lake City area, in a text to KUTV-TV.
After board members abruptly ended the meeting, the parents remained on the district’s campus and police were called. Horsley praised officers for “de-escalating the situation.”
The meeting was held after Utah reached criteria required for COVID-19 public health mandates to expire, KUTV-TV reported. The Utah Department of Health did not lift the mask order, however, for K-12 schools across the state.
Parents attending the meeting argued against continuing the requirement. Many questioned why masks would still be required in schools while they are not elsewhere.
The meeting devolved into disorder during the public comment session, video of the event obtained by KUTV-TV showed, when former school board member and state Sen. Kathleen Riebe tried to speak but was booed and yelled over by people in the audience.
Board members tried to shut down the public comment session when a woman took the microphone and declared: “You let a senator come up here and speak in the name of my children who you guys are abusing? Are you serious?”
The woman was joined by a man who yelled, “You will listen to us!”
When the man was told that the public comment session had ended, he yelled: “Remember this day!”
A board member then made a motion to adjourn the meeting amid shouts and chants of “No more masks!”
Horsley said it had become clear that the meeting could not proceed.
“Granite District fundamentally believes and encourages a diversity of opinions when shared in respectful and civil manner and will continue to encourage civil discourse as a model for the children which we have stewardship over,” Horsley said.
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