On the first day of the spring semester, a 9-year-old was sent home from a Baton Rouge school for refusing to wear a mask while in his classroom.
The student, a fourth-grader at University Laboratory School on the campus of Louisiana State University, was suspended.
“A student refusing to follow the mask mandate is a health concern and a disruption in the classroom, and therefore, they are not allowed to stay on campus,” read a statement from LSU. Because of the stipulation mandating the prohibition of maskless people on campus, the suspension was elevated to the out-of-school variety.
The student’s father, Kyle Robichaux, believes the school is being disingenuous about their motives.
“I have some concerns that education is not their priority, but controlling our children are, is their priority and I think that's a big problem,” Robichaux told WBRZ-TV.
“It's clearly a hypocritical policy. Follow the money, right? LSU, you know, everyone's having a celebratory time, we can take our masks off and do whatever we want but we have to put our children, who can't make decisions on their own or a lot of kids can't, they have to sit there and abide by these rules that make no sense, that have no rational basis behind them,” he said.
LSU’s official COVID-19 policy for the spring semester requires masks to be worn inside all campus buildings and at “campus events.” However, unmasked fans were plentiful during LSU’s basketball contest against Kentucky Tuesday night at the campus’s Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The school says though that the policy does not cover sporting events, and that statewide mandates are being observed by LSU Athletics.
While Robichaux said he does not plan to find another school for his children, he also is not ready to drop this issue.
“All these policies stop when we make them stop. So, when you stop making your kids follow rules that don't make sense, that's when things are going to change and we'll get back to normal life,” he said.
For a full list of LSU’s campus COVID rules, click here. For the policy for LSU basketball games, click here.
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