On-campus health center has already seen thousands of patients
Debra "Hank" Dinschel
* Part 1 of a 2-part report
Robbinsville – It’s no secret that Hank Dinschel vehemently opposes the use of masks as a safeguard against illness.
The newest member of the Graham County Board of Education has penned several letters to the editor in The Graham Star, posted videos to her Rumble channel and uses her elected seat to voice her displeasure, with the idea that masks do more harm that good. The main crux of her argument centers around the theory that masks increase CO2 (carbon dioxide) intake by an individual, which can have lethal consequences.
Soon after Dinschel won the November election, in which she edged Maria Shook by just one vote, she was touring Robbinsville Elementary School with Superintendent Angie Knight. Once you leave the front office, it is a long stroll down the kindergarten hall to the first of many branching corridors.
To the right is the hallway to the remainder of the classrooms (grades 1-5). To the left is the Erlanger School-Based Clinic.
As Dinschel has recounted in recent meetings, she was taken aback to see a student sitting in the hallway, waiting to be seen. The student was wearing a mask – which also drew her attention, since masks are now optional.
The COVID pandemic heightened the system’s need to bring a clinic back for students, staff and immediate family members of faculty. One had existed as recently as the early 2000s, but the contract was not renewed after the district struggled to maintain a provider. The concept was never really broached thereafter.
With more students returning for in-person learning at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, a deal was reached with the Erlanger network to revive an on-site clinic for those attending schools in remote Graham County. A ribbon cutting was held Sept. 29, 2021, and the two-room office is manned by a nurse practitioner and a medical assistant.
Payments are administered on a sliding scale and most insurances are accepted – all of which makes for a convenient aid for parents that cannot leave work to take their child for an unexpected medical diagnosis. The contract between Erlanger and Graham County Schools is revisited on a yearly basis and thus, came up as an agenda item at the March school-board meeting.
Dinschel was ready, and the stage was set.
‘Not constitutional’
Dinschel asked to be put on the agenda. She was listed before the Erlanger contract was to be discussed.
In her speech – which can be heard in the video archives on both grahamstar.com and The Graham Star’s YouTube channel – she cites a study conducted at the University of Florida, in which five children and one adult wore clean masks for 5-7 hours before testing the masks to see what had been absorbed from the subjects. A total of 11 different illnesses could be traced between the six masks worn.
“The last thing I want on school grounds is something contagious,” Dinschel said in the March meeting. “I’m not telling children not to wear masks; I just want you to know what’s in the masks.”
Dinschel finished her presentation and moved onto the school-based clinic. Knight explained the renewal process, and Dinschel took her stance.
“What do I think about the clinic? Obviously, I am not for it,” Dinschel said. “I’ve only heard good things, from leadership to the people that are using it. But I did my own thinking on it, and God led me to a few things.
“The Constitution. What does the Constitution think about something like this? We’re marrying medical and schools into one place. That’s consolidating power; that’s Communistic behavior. You want to keep things separate.
“Plus, the parents’ rights become eroded when things get too big and you can’t control them. We’re a school. They’re medical. They need to be kept separate.”
Dinschel praised the district for the various career opportunities students are fruitfully prepared for by attending Graham County Schools, then laid out the scenario of seeing the student wearing a mask while waiting to be seen at the clinic.
“If there’s a virus in that mask, we’re about to be exposed – and that includes me and everybody in the hall,” Dinschel recalled as her thoughts in the moment.
“I may be a board member, but I am still a child of God. I must say something or I would just be a cockamamie hypocrite.”
All the while, seated in the audience was one district staff member who only stewed more as Dinschel continued.
* Next week: The report picks up with the April 4 board meeting, where a district faculty member and clinic staff alike note the positive impact of the center. Also, Dinschel provides The Graham Star with a detailed explanation of her stance on the subject.