SAN ANTONIO — A San Antonio father is voicing his concerns to KENS 5 after he says a teacher forced his daughter to remove her mask, violating school policy.
It happened Wednesday at Great Hearts Western Hills, off Ingram Road on the northwest side.
The father wished to remain anonymous, but wanted to share his daughter's story to raise awareness. He says his daughters have worn masks at Great Hearts charter school for the past two years with no problems, but that all changed in the hallway this week.
"A teacher approached my daughter in the hallway and told her she cannot wear a mask without a medical reason," he explained.
He said his daughter has a medical reason, and filed an asthma action plan with the nurse days before school started. While asthma plays a role in her choosing to wear a mask, she's also trying to protect a vulnerable family member.
"My 18-year-old daughter was diagnosed with cancer," said the father.
Following Wednesday's incident, the father e-mailed Trinette Keffer, the upper school headmaster, for an explanation.
"Her response was basically saying that masks cause people to not communicate properly. They've noticed they're not learning as good with a mask on," the father explained, paraphrasing Keffer's e-mail.
The father shared a copy of the correspondence with KENS 5.
In her e-mail, Keffer wrote in-part, "We have found over the last 2 years that most students who have continued to wear a mask were not doing it for any medical reason, but that it was just a teenage trend common to friend groups - similar to a social contagion. Most students we have stopped couldn't tell us a good reason to wear the mask, so we told them to remove it."
"Right now, with our COVID situation, people try to enforce stuff like this and it's only going to make things worse," the father said. "That school, this year, has so many more people than last year."
He says Keffer proposed having his daughter wear a special tag on her ID to let teachers know she could wear a mask.
"I said, 'That's not going to happen. Not with my daughter.'"
In a statement to KENS 5, Great Hearts Texas confirms the teacher and headmaster's actions violated policy.
"Our policy states our students may choose to wear a mask or not wear a mask," Great Hearts Texas administrators wrote. "This policy has been in effect for more than two years. The incident that was reported to you is being explored. I believe that all involved will receive communication on our policy and will support the policy."
When speaking with a Great Hearts Texas administrator over the phone, they assured they are refreshing teachers and staff of the mask policy.
The father tells us Keffer called him to apologize.
KENS 5 checked with three of San Antonio's largest school districts to learn their mask policies. We learned NISD, NEISD and SAISD are the same: The choice to wear a mask is up to the student.
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