Editor: The schools have the responsibility for doing everything known to man and science in order to protect its charges. Society not only wants that, but expects it. Schools are not allowed to do anything, however trivial or minute, that has the potential to result in harm to students. Countless lawsuits have resulted in this legal mandate. And just guess who the first ones to want to sue. And you just get one guess.
So here’s where this goes. (Been there, seen that.) Masks are not required. A student gets sick. Parents allege he acquired the pathogen at school, because the school did not take adequate safety measures to protect the kiddo; therefore, the school was negligent. A suit is filed against the school district because the decision not to require masks was made by the school board. (It’s immaterial, but will be argued, that the parents cannot prove whence the pathogen was acquired.) What will end up being adjudicated is whether the school should have required masks. Experts will testify on both sides of the issue, but in the end, those scientists and doctors who advise mask-wearing will carry the day, especially when the school could have done something but didn’t just because it was “inconvenient” or “overbearing.” The judge will rule that the schools should have required masks, without regard to political wrangling (which is called “playing politics with peoples’ lives). Or, more likely, the parents and the board will reach an out-of-court settlement, without an admission of liability, which doesn’t preclude responsibility, and we are left to repeat the process.
Fortunately, the school board has D&O liability insurance, which will pay both legal costs to defend the board and any damages awarded, which, all totaled, could be in the millions, depending on the specific facts of the case as presented.
Why would anyone, in his right mind (or her in her not-right mind) want to argue that we need to subject ourselves to all of this, when it can easily be avoided?
— Joe Felice, via letters@sentinelcolorado.com