Conestoga High School calls emergency virtual day after ‘threatening statements’ made over masking

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The Tredyffrin/Easttown School District called an emergency virtual day for Conestoga High School Monday due to concerns about student safety amid contentious debate over masking.

“It has been our goal throughout the school year to prioritize in-person instruction and we are disappointed that the topic of masking and resulting incivility of some has compromised our ability to safely operate school tomorrow,” the district said in a statement Sunday.

The district cited “threatening statements directed toward other students, including racist and homophobic slurs and insults,” and said it was working with police.

The disruption came amid escalating debate in a number of communities over masking, which is required in many Philadelphia-area districts — Tredyffrin/Easttown among them. But a growing number have moved recently to make masking optional as COVID-19 cases have been falling, and as more experts say mandates may no longer be necessary, despite continued CDC recommendations in favor of universal masking in schools.

On Friday, a group of about 50 Conestoga students opposed to masking staged a protest — chanting “USA” and “Freedom!” in the school’s atrium before walking out of school, slamming doors and yelling on their way out of the building, according to the high school’s student newspaper, The Spoke, which also reported that “pro-mask and pro-science students” had planned a sit-in for Monday.

Some opposed to the walkout booed, but there wasn’t much back-and-forth among students Friday, said Ben Shapiro, a sophomore who is co-copy editor of the newspaper and covered the event. Instead, “I think the student conflicts really happened over social media,” Shapiro said.

Over the weekend, The Spoke turned off comments on its Instagram account “due to an immense amount of comments” containing homophobia, racism, and transphobia, the paper’s editors said in a statement.

“I can’t say for certain if it was only one side doing it to each other,” Shapiro said, adding that more social-media arguments were playing out over students’ personal accounts, and that students who took photos of the protesters were “turning those into memes.”

The district did not respond to questions Monday afternoon about whether the threats it cited were directed toward the students opposed to or in favor of masking, or what action might be taken going forward.

Dana Zdancewicz, who has two children at Conestoga, said some of the students who walked out “were plastered on social media … saying they had privilege,” and were the subject of “toxic and dangerous rants.” Zdancewicz, who said she was “pro-choice when it comes to masking our children,” said one of her sons was in school Friday but didn’t participate in the walkout because he anticipated negative reaction from other students.

“It quickly went down a dark path,” Zdancewicz said. “It’s disheartening.”

Some tied the dissent among students to animosity between their parents. Several Tredyffrin/Easttown parents sued the district at the start of the school year, arguing unsuccessfully that its mask mandate violated their religious freedom. And the issue has polarized parents and students on social media and at school board meetings.

Some of the parents who have “created a lot of stir at school board meetings, their children were at the forefront” of the protest opposing masking, said Stacey Mignone, a Conestoga parent who supports continued masking. She said video from outside the school showed parents “verbally encouraging their students” after they walked out.

Cute said she hadn’t seen explicit threats on social media. “There’s a level of cleverness among the students,” she said, and in making memes in response to Friday’s walkout, “I think they’re making almost a statement back — ‘This is where I stand, what I’m thinking about it .’” But she supported the district’s decision to go virtual in light of potentially serious threats.

“You’re seeing a subset of communication — there are texts and Snapchats, and private messaging between each other,” she said. “There could be even more to it.”

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