From Staff Reports 

Following outbursts from an unruly audience, the Buncombe County Board of Education called a recess during its Aug 5 meeting, at which point a group of parents opposing the district’s mask mandate voted to “overthrow” the board and take over the positions themselves in what has been billed in the media as an “attempted coup d’état.”

“About 30 people signed loose-leaf paper claiming themselves ‘witnesses’ of the new school board,” the Asheville Citizen Times reported on Aug. 6.

“They acted as a dictatorship, and so therefore, the people then take it into our own hands to abolish that governance and re-elect new members right then and there,” the group’s leader and BSC parent Stephanie Parsons was quoted by the ACT as saying.

The ACT added, “Buncombe County Schools attorney Dean Shatley said the group’s actions ‘unequivocally’ do not mean the current school board is out of office... I know they’re very passionate and care a tremendous amount about what they were here to speak about, but what they did has no authority under the law.”

The incident marked the second time protesters have interruped a school board meeting this summer. “During a June 3 meeting, board Chair Ann Franklin suspended public comment due to unruly crowds outside the building,” the ACT noted.

At the Aug. 5 session, the protesters were enraged by the board’s vote to continue its mask mandate into the 2021-22 school year. Specifically, at a specially called meeting on Aug. 5 morning, the board voted 4-2 “to require all staff and students who do not show proof of a COVID-19 vaccine to wear masks while in school buildings and on buses. No public comment was permitted during the specially called meeting,” the ACT stated.

The ACT reported that “nearly three dozen speakers took the podium holding signs with messages that included: ‘Let our children breathe,’ ‘Our kids, our choice’ and ‘The fake vaccine is the plandemic.’ Many more wore black T-shirts emblazoned with the message, ‘Unmask our kids.’”

The public comments portion of the meeting, which spanned about two hours, featured an eruption of applause from the audience as each of the speakers expressed vehement opposition to the mandate.

As noted widely in both the local as well as national news media, the speakers included 11th District U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-Hendersonville, who, the ACT noted, told school board members they should be “ashamed of themselves” for continuing to require face coverings.

What’s more, the ACT reported, “Cawthorn scolded the school board for voting on the mask mandate before community members were allowed to voice their views on the issue.

“‘You have muzzled (parents’) voices just as you have muzzled our children,’ he said. ‘You passed this mask mandate without input from those who hold you accountable because you knew it would never withstand the scrutiny of the public.

“‘I’ve witnessed swampy backdoor tactics from corrupt bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., but what you have done here puts that all to shame,’ Cawthorn asserted.”

Conversely, Victoria Hoyland, who noted that she has a first-grader at Johnston Elementary School, was among the minority of speakers who expressed approval of mask mandates. Further, she even encouraged the school board to require vaccinated students and staff to wear masks, too.

The ACT quoted Hoyland as saying, “I want this to be over and to stop wearing masks as much as anyone in here, but we have to protect our kids and our community. Masks protect others more than the wearer, so my daughter wearing a mask will not provide her adequate protection. I’m asking the board and Buncombe County to help me protect my daughter.”

To that end, the ACT stated, “The school board reprimanded the crowd only once — when several audience members booed Hoyland, who backed mask mandates.”

Among the overwhelming number of the speakers who scolded the school board for requiring masks was Vivian Gonzalez, who the ACT quoted as saying, “Whoever votes to mask our children this school year, you’re all criminals and should all be in jail for child abuse. And (school board member Amy) Churchill — I am so looking forward to seeing you behind bars!”

The ACT also reported that “board members made only one decision regarding COVID-19 protocols during the Aug. 5 evening meeting . A 5-1 vote — Churchill in opposition — determined that student-athletes participating in fall sports would not be required to wear masks during ‘intense’ physical activity.”

BCS Superintendent Tony Baldwin was quoted by the ACT as saying, “I think it makes excellent sense in terms of the health and safety of our athletes in indoor sports. This will be an area that we constantly have to monitor.”

The ACT added, “Despite the wave of opposition at the school board meeting, unvaccinated students and staff will be required to wear face coverings when classes start Aug. 23. As per a vote in the specially called meeting, board members will revisit the mask mandate as case numbers increase and decrease in Buncombe County.”

The Daily Planet contacted Baldwin for his comments on the meeting, but did not receive a response by the newspaper’s Aug. 9 deadline.