John Provenzano, the 10-year-old Florida student who criticized his school district’s mask mandate at a school board meeting, said he did it because he “wanted to take a stand.”
The fourth grade student from Felix A. Williams Elementary in Martin County told Fox & Friends on Wednesday that his classmates are “not happy” about the compulsory face mask rule either.
A video of Provenzano went viral this week after his speech during the meeting last week called the district’s mandate unfair to children.
The 10-year-old claimed an unmasked teacher had repeatedly told him and other students to keep their masks on when they tried to drink water outside.
10-YEAR-OLD GOES VIRAL BEGGING SCHOOL BOARD TO END MASK MANDATE: THE RULES AREN’T FAIR, ‘DON’T MAKE SENSE TO ME’
“She had her mask down the entire time while she was yelling at us, which makes me and all my friends very mad,” he said. “This happens a lot, and it seems unfair that teachers take their masks off while they yell at us kids and that we need to pull ours up. I asked my mom if there is a word for this, and she said there is: ‘Hypocrisy.'”
After the fourth grader spoke at the meeting, the school board voted 4-1 to keep masks mandatory for the 12 remaining days of the semester. Masks will be an option for summer school students starting June 1.
Provenzano’s father, Michael, told Fox News that his son was pulled from the meeting after voicing his opinion on mask mandates. He argued the board is “out of touch” and is attempting to “silence” and “remove” those who don’t agree with them.
“My message has been simple for the last couple months: It’s personal choice, personal freedom,” he said. “The parents know best.”
COVID-19 cases around the nation have slowed in recent weeks thanks to the vaccine disbursement efforts across the United States, which has vaccinated over 124 million people in the country so far, according to Johns Hopkins COVID-19 data.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
In Florida, over 7 million people have been fully vaccinated, and cases in recent weeks have dwindled to a rolling seven-day average of 3,060 cases reported as of Saturday, down from the seven-day average on April 16, which showed 6,756 per week.
