The Youngkin administration is less than two days old in Virginia, and the gauntlet is being thrown down for the first of what is sure to be many battles.

On his first day in office, Governor Youngkin signed eleven executive orders that directly fulfilled promises that he had made to voters.

One of those executive orders repealed the mask mandate in all K-12 public schools in the state. However, the Arlington Public Schools promptly thumbed its nose at Governor Youngkin within minutes via Twitter.
https://twitter.com/APSVirginia/status/1482481768229969922
It’s always interesting to see when a previous executive (say, a president or governor) repeals an executive order of his or her predecessor, and then people and courts decide that the order cannot be repealed because REASONS. We saw this when President Trump repealed DACA by executive order, and now that Governor Youngkin is point-blank repealing a previous EO by Ralph Northam, the schools are saying they will openly defy the order.

Youngkin was not impressed.

Youngkin slammed Arlington Public Schools over the response.”

“The fact that that tweet came out from Arlington County within minutes of my Executive Order, what that tells me, is they haven’t listened to parents yet,” Youngkin told reporters Sunday.”

But other school districts are following suit.

On Sunday, Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS) released a statement to families and staff saying that their “existing rules regarding masks will remain in place” as they work to understand “how this order impacts us and how best to comply.”

Isle of Wight and Northampton county schools both say their mandates will stay in place for the time being.”

Elsewhere in Virginia, several school districts have also made it clear mask mandates are here to stay. At least for now.”

In a tweet, the Superintendent of Richmond Public Schools said RPS “will maintain its 100% mask mandate for students, staff, and visitors.”

Mask mandates will also stay in place at northern Virginia schools, including Fairfax and Arlington counties.”

And we’re back to the initial problem all over again. Parents want the option to take the masks off their kids because the schools districts have no off ramp to the masking. They are simply waiting for some nebulous day when it is “safe” to unmask, and the CDC tells them that it’s okay. Well, enough parents were tired of waiting, so Glenn Youngkin was elected. But you would never believe it from the reactions on Twitter (which, of course, are not always necessarily from Virginia voters or parents). And one Twitter response caught the media’s eye – because of who it was.

Hi there. Arlington county parent here (don’t believe you are @GlennYoungkin but correct me if I am wrong). Thank you to @APSVirginia for standing up for our kids, teachers and administrators and their safety in the midst of a transmissible variant. https://t.co/6UeNIYoZCU

— Jen Psaki (@jrpsaki) January 17, 2022

Yes, Jen Psaki is using her personal account. But she’s still THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY, and the primary mouthpiece of the Biden administration, so it’s hard to pass off her comments as “just a parent in Arlington county” – which led to an interesting question.

Your kids attend public schools? https://t.co/iUSuPRajUA

— Jon Gabriel (@exjon) January 17, 2022

The child in question would be the kindergartener that Psaki bragged “could wear a mask all day” back in August, and was highly critical at the time of Governor DeSantis of Florida for unmasking kids from the podium. Somehow, Florida’s students have not all died of COVID-19, even in the highly contagious Omicron variant era, just because they have the option to not wear a mask.

And that really is the crux of the argument. Parents wanted a CHOICE. The repeal of the mandate still means that kids MAY wear masks, they just aren’t REQUIRED to. It is a distinction with a difference that is being willfully ignored by those who now want to shove kids into KN95 masks (which at the moment are stupidly expensive in the smaller kid sizes on Amazon), or N95 masks (which the FDA specifically says should not be worn by children).

Governor Youngkin is being tested by these school districts, and how he decides to respond will set the tone for the next four years. If he caves right off the bat, then the attempt to reform the public schools of Virginia will fall flat instantly. I don’t think Youngkin will cave, but he’s going to need to be creative and deliberate in how he responds to the districts and the teachers’ unions. He has the backing of the voters who put in him in office. They expect him to follow through, not just issue the executive order and then shrug it off if the districts fling it back in his face.

This is going to be a long slog for the parents of Virginia who are not Jen Psaki, and for Governor Youngkin. The panic is not going to stop overnight. But it HAS to be stopped if we are ever going to give the kids the childhood, the education, and the freedom they deserve.

Featured image: Glenn Youngkin via Flickr, cropped, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)