In a civics lesson his students will never forget, Pennsylvania high school teacher Kurt Gladfelter took off his mask and lost his job.
“Compliance is not always the right thing, and this is wrong,” Gladfelter told Pezou in a phone interview. “To do this to kids— it is not worth the cost.”
An 11th grade teacher at Northern High School in the Northern York County School District, Gladfelter, 38, is a civics teacher with classes on government, economics, and the Vietnam War.
His school was under a mask mandate last year and, because of an order from the Pennsylvania Health Department, the mask order was in place again this year.
“I’m an animated person,” Gladfelter said. “I feed off the energy in the class. Not having the ability to read their faces, I felt trapped. I was miserable not having that emotional connection with my students.
He says he can’t be the same teacher with masks on because students’ faces offer a lot of visual cues without masks.
“I can tell how a kid feels when they walk into my class. I know if they are having a bad day. I can tell if they understand the lesson by the look on their face. masks are a huge barrier to education, the way I teach, and the subject I teach.”
“Not to mention the panicky feeling you get when you are speaking all day and you can’t breathe through the mask.”
He always had a feeling that he wanted to take a stand, but didn’t know how. But one day he walked into school and the thought of another day in his mask was too much.
“On October 20, I looked at that mask and I wanted to cry. That day, I didn’t wear it.”
Half way through the day the principal and someone from human resources went to his classroom and told him he was on suspension for two days and he should vacate the premises immediately.
“I didn’t trust them to explain it to my students like I would. I stayed for the rest of the day and explained what was happening. I told them that you should be willing to stand up for something you believe in and I strongly believe in this, personally and politically. Local school board members are appointed to make policies for local schools. Our school board voted twice to make masks optional. governor stole that authority from them,” Gladfelter said.
A student started a petition to save his job and it has over 2,500 signatures.
He was supposed to return to school, wearing a mask the next Monday, but he told the school he would not be wearing a mask.
y asked him to come in for a meeting with the superintendent, solicitor, and human resources director. In that meeting he told them he would not wear the mask. y told him he would be put on permanent suspension without pay and they would take steps to terminate his employment.
next step is a public hearing where the school board will decide if he should lose his job.
While awaiting a date for that hearing, the Commonwealth Court said the Health Department’s masking order violated state laws and struck it down. It would mean the civics teacher was suspended for violating an order that violated the state law.
However, the Wolf administration appealed the decision, so the mask order stays in place for now. That, despite the fact that Wolf recently announced he would return masking decisions to local school districts in January.
“ basis of the charges is that Mr. Gladfelter failed to comply with the Order which the Commonwealth Court noted was issued without proper authority,” Jeffrey Schott, a labor and civil rights attorney at the Scaringi Law Firm in Harrisburg, Penn. told Pezou. Schott is representing Gladfelter.
“Regardless, Mr. Gladfelter complied with the Acting Health Secretary’s order, and the series of events and allegations stem from the district being even more draconian than the order itself, and are clearly politically motivated,” he said. “As a Social Studies teacher, Mr. Gladfelter, trying to set a civic involvement example for his students, spoke against the mandate at two school board meetings. Eliminating teachers for this is simply another way, like the National School Board Association and Attorney General threatening parents for speaking out, of trying to shut down political debate.”
School District’s attorney, Robert Frankhouser Jr. told Pezou the district does not comment on personnel matters.
Pezou : Pennsylvania Civics Teacher Removes Mask, Loses Job