To:  Arrowhead School District School Board and Superintendent Laura Myrah

From:  Parents of Children Attending Arrowhead School District

Date:  May 10, 2021

Re: Elimination of mask policy and a revision to the quarantine policy effective immediately

We the parents of children who attend Arrowhead School District are requesting you immediately remove the requirement for airway coverings (masks) in our schools.  It is unlawful and unhealthy to continue to require our children to wear masks all day long.  Children should be allowed to breathe fresh air.  Parents should be the ones making decisions regarding the safety and well being of our children.  We have legitimate medical, religious and philosophical reasons for wanting our children mask free.

Cloth masks were emergency authorized products for medical use in a declared state of emergency.  Masks are not FDA approved medical devices.  The State of Wisconsin and Waukesha County are NOT under a public health emergency order, mandate or law.

Federal Law Title 12 U.S.C 360bbb-3 reads - the emergency use authorization states all unapproved products are optional.  This includes tests, masks not used as PPE in clinical or surgery settings and shots.  This is a law and if you are not making masks optional you are breaking the law.  By law you must allow students, staff, parents, visitors while on public tax-paid school property the option to wear or not wear a mask.  We are asking that Superintendent Laura Myrah and the Arrowhead School Board immediately start upholding the oath you took and start following the law.

Furthermore, there are many documented studies questioning the efficacy of masks as well as the negative side effects.  Most recently some masks have been recalled because they had been coated in Graphene, which allows them to be waterproof and COVID resistant.  We cannot tell which masks have been coated.  Graphene (carbon nanotubes) are shown to cause malignant mesothelioma.  There are indeed unintended risks.  As parents, we do not need studies to tell us of these negative effects because we are seeing them in our children every day, including headaches, sadness, regression in talking, breathing issues, fearfulness, anxiety, skin infections, increased allergy symptoms, increased asthmatic symptoms, social problems, and psychological damage to name a few.  We are taking a stand for the mental, physical, emotional, and social wellbeing of our children.  The liability for the damage these masks are inflicting on our children lies solely in our hands, yet we are left with no voice in making these decisions.  In addition, it is well documented that children are at very low risk for serious complications from the disease COVID-19, even lower than the yearly flu.

Secondly, we request that you immediately revise the policy for close contact and put an end to quarantining healthy students who show no symptoms at the time of contact.  Contact tracing is subjective and our statistical numbers provided each week have not proven this to be a reliable method of mitigating spread among our students.  Unnecessary quarantining of large numbers of students has had negative impacts to student and family life in areas of social, emotional, mental, physical and financial health.  

Alternative solutions would be to adopt a new policy in which families are notified of a potential contact by the school nurse.  Symptomatic students at the time of notification should continue to be quarantined.  Students without symptoms at the time of notifications would be allowed to remain in school, sports and activities while monitoring for symptoms.  Upon notification, families should also retain the right to self-quarantine based on their comfort level.

We, the undersigned, believe that parents should solely be making the medical decision for our children.  No medical device or intervention should be forced upon students by entities outside of their guardians.  Families should be able to utilize their own risk assessment, considering all physical, social/emotional and mental health risks and benefits when it comes to making medical decision for our children, including masking.

By signing this petition, we officially and respectfully ask you to IMMEDIATELY end the requirement of masks and to revise an overreaching quarantine policy in Arrowhead Schools.  We remind you to uphold the oath you took and follow the law as it is written.