Petition to Ban Mask Mandates at Cor Jesu Academy

UPDATE

Thank you to all those who signed the petition last month, especially those individuals who signed their full name. For those who chose to sign “anonymous”, we certainly understand the hesitation and concern over potential parent/child retribution or fallout. However, an anonymous signature can be easily dismissed and provides little substantive support for this initiative.

In truth, there is strength in numbers, and we’ll need a majority of parents willing to courageously stand up for their daughters in order to bring about any change. For what it’s worth, we are in the VAST majority. Consider the following:

• In most cases, only one parent from each family was contacted via text message with a link to “consider signing our petition”
• Of those contacted, less than 5% (4.68%) asked to be ‘unsubscribed’ from further communication
• 4 individuals responded with “masks save lives” proclamations
• 2 parents sent such vitriolic, hate-filled replies we’re frankly shocked these individuals consider themselves Christian

Our position is simple. If a parent believes masks and vaccines are appropriate for their family, then those parents should be afforded their parental right to mandate that their child wear a mask and/or receive the vaccine. If these parents believe both are effective protective measures, then there should be no concern of spread from unmasked or unvaccinated students.

Likewise, a majority of parents who believe masks and/or vaccines are ineffective and/or health hazards (see HERE and HERE), those parents should be afforded the same parental right to make that determination for their family, without harassment or retribution. Even the Archdiocese of Saint Louis announced in August that masks and vaccines should be a family choice, not a mandate in school.

MOVING FORWARD

We will leave this petition open until October 1st with encouragement to send/resend it to your spouses, your daughters, and your CJ parent community via text/email/social media/etc along with a request they courageously sign their name. Once we reach a majority of family signatures (approximately 220 families) we intend to take this petition forward to CJ school administrators for consideration and will communicate their response to all who signed.

And if you think these administrators intend to stop at mask mandates, consider this. In homeroom today (09/14/21) our daughters were forced to complete a form without parental consent or notification, requiring full name, graduation year and disclosure of private health information indicating whether they were “fully”, “partly” or “not at all” vaccinated.

Demanding private health information from minors without parental consent is at best, a severe violation of parent-school trust and at worst, illegal. It's also just one more unfortunate example of how little respect these administrators have for our God-given, legally protected, parental rights.

If you're compelled to express concern regarding this most recent overreach, you can find contact information for the CJ principal and president HERE.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

A Group of Concerned Parents

ORIGINAL PETITION

Cor Jesu Parents.

Despite recent statements from the Archdiocese of St. Louis indicating "masking in schools should be up to families" the school administrators of Cor Jesu Academy on August 11, 2021, sent email notification unilaterally proclaiming indoor mask mandates for students, faculty & visitors at all times throughout the 2021-2022 school year.

As a private educational institution, Cor Jesu Academy depends upon the financial support of parents through annual tuition payments & personal donations. As such, Cor Jesu parents have an expectation as well as an inherent right to have a voice in decisions which impact not only the health but also the emotional well-being of their daughters.

By excluding the parents voice in this process, Cor Jesu administrators have sent a clear signal they do not value the Cor Jesu parent community and have little respect for parental rights in these important matters.

Signing this petition serves notice that the Cor Jesu parent community will no longer sit idle while nonsensical, unsubstantiated mandates are unilaterally imposed upon our children without evidentiary based information and parental consent.

If we, the parents will not stand & fight for the rights of our daughters during these challenging, defining times, how can we ever expect them to learn to stand & fight for themselves in the future?

Introduction

Masks and vaccines have become political tools and talismans. The CDC currently estimates a COVID-19 survival rate of 99.99 percent for people younger than age 50. By comparison the survival rate for Influenza, for the same age group is virtually identical.

Obfuscating the 'science’ to achieve political goals

Politicians and health bureaucrats are so desperate to make people believe in masks and vaccines that they manipulate facts to make their case, even when their own data actually undermines them. Here are just a few scientific facts about universal mask wearing that should concern every parent.

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine stated, “[W]earing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection” and that “[T]he desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.”

• Natural breathing through facemasks facilitates the development of bacterial and germ residue components on the inner and outside layer of the facemask
• Breathing through facemasks increases temperature and humidity in the space between the mouth and the mask, resulting in a release of toxic particles from the mask’s materials
• Rebreathing contaminated air with high bacterial and toxic particle concentrations along with low O2 and high CO2 levels continuously challenges the body homeostasis, causing self-toxicity and immunosuppression
• Prolonged mask wearing challenges normal homeostasis activating an acute stress response of the nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, and immune systems
• Prolonged mask wearing has demonstrated to have substantial adverse physiological and psychological effects including hypoxia, hypercapnia, shortness of breath, increased acidity and toxicity, activation of fear and stress response, rise in stress hormones, immunosuppression, fatigue, headaches, decline in cognitive performance, predisposition for viral and infectious illnesses, chronic stress, anxiety, depression, and suicide
• Long-term consequences of wearing facemasks can cause health deterioration, developing and progression of chronic diseases and premature death

There are many other credible studies showing lack of mask efficacy, as well as the physiological and psychological harms of prolonged mask wearing including studies published in the National Center for Biotechnology Information, Cambridge University Press, Oxford Clinical Infectious Diseases, and Influenza Journal, just to name a few.

Conclusion

Multiple studies and data conclusively suggest that both medical and non-medical facemasks are ineffective to block human-to-human transmission of viral and infectious disease such as SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19.

The 'science' is clear -- masks are not just useless at preventing viral spread, but actively damaging to individual health and the social well-being of individuals, especially young people.