Masked? Check. Vaccinated? Check. Frustrated? Check.

“But mommy, I wore my mask. Why do I have to go home?”

That was the tearful plea of a first-grader asking her mother why she had to be among the more than 5,000 Aiken County School District students in quarantine.

School board member Dr. Patricia Hanks shared the story with her fellow board members as the group talked about what to do to encourage mask wearing and protect the district’s students and staff from the spread of COVID-19.

It’s a valid question.

While too young to receive any of the COVID-19 vaccines, the little girl played her part.

She wore a mask, an action both the CDC and the South Carolina Department of Health of Environmental Control urge people to take.

Yet, she was required to join the unmasked students being sent home and forced to rely on remote learning rather than be in the classroom.

What lesson does a first-grader learn when they have done all they can do to stay safe and protect others and still find themselves suffering the consequences because others didn’t?

The New York Times called it the “rage of the responsible.”

It’s a question we need to ask as school districts across the state, just days or weeks into the new school year, each face the choice of how to keep schools open and safe.

It’s also something we need to think about as South Carolina is just about to cross another milestone in this pandemic. According to the latest state total, 10,996 of our residents have died from COVID-19.

11,000 seems inevitable.

At the Aiken County meeting, the group talked about incentives, other than not getting sick and dying, for people to wear masks - special awards, prizes, even money.

Hanks also mentioned an idea the parent of that unhappy first-grader shared.

The parent, who Hanks said was a healthcare professional, suggested it was time to divide classrooms into two factions.

“Why do we not consider maybe dividing the classrooms? You want the maskers on one side and the anti-maskers on the other.”

Hanks explained, “If those students are separated by a distance of six feet and something happens within that zone of students that don’t have masks on, they suffer the consequences of being out of school, not the students who are diligent about wearing the masks and are sitting in a separate location from them.”

Segregating the masked and unmasked didn’t sit well with board member Patrice Rhinehart-Jackson, noting the historical context surrounding the concept.

“We would be opening up a can of worms as far as segregation,” she said.

Others said it could create division and dissension in the classrooms and would be a nightmare to administrate.

While it’s an interesting idea, I expect Rhinehart-Jackson is right. It would likely be both difficult to administrate and cause a lot of hurt feelings at a time when communities are already struggling to stick together

The discussion was set aside without a vote and the group soon turned to other topics, but we cannot ignore the desperation and frustration of that little girl and all those other South Carolina residents doing their part to protect the rest of us.

They have had just about enough.

This story was originally published September 9, 2021 at 12:00 PM.