The Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori School of Ithaca (EACMSI) in New York made headlines recently for its enforced silence during lunch and the secret hand signals students devised to communicate. The school still requires masks inside and outside, even after the end of New York’s mask mandate, at the request of teachers. This is just one example of the left-wing fanatics who embrace COVID theater with the same blind surety they bring to arguments about race or climate change.
However, there is zero real evidence that Clune’s policies made any difference to COVID outcomes. It is a ritualized system of power and political conformity, enforced by hurting the most vulnerable. But it’s not unbeatable or inevitable. Centner Academy in Florida provides a better alternative.
Centner Academy is equally dedicated to vague, hippy-dippy principles, employing a “director of brain optimization” and hosting a dedicated space for failure. But the school took a common-sense approach to the COVID situation, opening for in-person study way ahead of the curve for Miami-Dade, and going mask-optional in the fall of 2020. As a result, its students suffered none of the pointless interruptions to learning that plagued kids nationwide for over a year, egged on by union fatcats and hysteria-mongering media.
While Centner Academy is not above criticism, there were no mass outbreaks, no apocalyptic virus waves or pediatric deaths. In contrast, Clune’s policies hurt the children and parents who suffered under the school’s regime and the millions of kids who suffered at other schools nationwide.
The next time public health “experts” and psychotic woke teachers make authoritarian demands, remember the lessons from Clune and Centner. Don’t let the cultists win.
