Debra "Hank" Dinschel
Robbinsville – Newly-elected school board member Hank Dinschel kept true to her campaign on Tuesday, attempting to persuade other members of the board to support her crusade to ban masks on school property.
Dinschel tried twice to move for a ban on masks, which she said her research leads her to believe are more harmful than not wearing masks. She claimed that masks harm children by poisoning them with carbon dioxide, a contention that is widely disputed by the medical and scientific communities.
Board member Pam Knott pointed out that there are children attending Graham County Schools who wear masks out of necessity and for a variety of reasons other than COVID-19. One child wears masks because a parent is undergoing chemotherapy, for example.
Masks are voluntary at Graham County schools, although a child who is recovering from COVID-19 can return to school after five days if wearing a mask, as opposed to 10 days without a mask.
After her first attempt to make a motion seemed to be ignored, Dinschel became upset and said the board was unwilling to hear what she has learned in her research.
“We’ve listened for a while,” Board Chairman Rodney Nelson said, saying that Dinschel’s continued arguments for a complete mask ban was like “beating a dead horse.”
Nelson said Dinschel was taking up a lot of the board’s time and that her concerns about masks are covered in detail on her Rumble page posts.
Dinschel replied that she was “getting mad as hell,” and that the board was preventing her from meeting expectations of “my voters.”
A short time later, a more composed Dinschel apologized for her anger and repeated her motion to ban masks. This time her motion died for lack of a second.
Other news and notes
* Jeff Knight was named to fill a vacant school resources officer position. Knight had been a captain with the Graham County Sheriff’s Office and resigned after Brad Hoxit was elected sheriff in November. Hoxit named Cody George – who had been a Graham County Schools SRO – as his chief deputy.
* Finishing touches are under way at a new wing for Robbinsville Middle School and the wing was expected to be open as students return from their Christmas break today. An open house for the new facility will be announced soon. One finishing touch was the school sign, which read, “Robbinsville Middle Shcool.”
That typo was promptly corrected later Tuesday morning.