Lawrenceville, GA -An hour into the Gwinnett County Board of Education, the meeting ended early after several audience members refused to wear masks properly and denied requests to leave. The board had voted on all their agenda items and was in the public comment section of the meeting, when Board Chair, Everton Blair III, addressed the audience members about their masks.
After back and forth, the crowd started to chant, “Unmask our children” and removed their masks.
While the board moved the meeting into a smaller room and then quickly adjourned for the night, increasingly violent board meetings have exploded all across the metro Atlanta area. In May of this year, Gwinnett County Schools increased security at the board meetings like their counterparts in surrounding counties.
This type of violence to school boards prompted the National School Board Association to ask President Joe Biden for help combating the acts of violence against school board members and school staff.