Dori: Despite Washington high school pushback, students’ COVID mask-less ‘walk-ins’ go viral

It started out as a simple conversation among a few high school friends in southwest Washington. Before he knew it, Washougal High School senior Cade Costales was leading a COVID-19 resistance that has grown into mask-less school “walk-ins” and “walk-outs” over state and school district requirements.

Washougal students protest school mask mandate, argue for ‘right to choose’

“Our whole point of view is we believe being forced to wear the masks in schools is against our freedom of choice to do what’s best for us medically,” Costales told The Dori Monson Show.

The first student protest was held on Feb. 1, a date Costales and his classmates selected because it was National Freedom Day.

The students are pushing back against the mask mandates at school because they say they’re “sick and tired” of having to wear cloth and disposable masks they believed were “ineffective in spreading COVID.”

“On the boxes of disposable masks that they hand out in the school, in fine print, it says ‘the mask inside this box should not be used to prevent the spread of a virus,’” Costales said.

When word of the students’ mask-less “walk-in” started getting around, Costales says he got a call into the principal’s office.

“She essentially said we were not allowed to hold a protest like this and — to quote her own words — we were ‘endangering other students,’” the high school senior continued.

The principal responded by scheduling an outdoor assembly on the football field where students could go before their planned Feb. 1 mask-less walk-in.

“That’s when I gave the speech that blew up on the internet,” Costales said.

Ongoing mask-less walk-ins have been stymied when teens were turned away from entering the building without a mask. On Wednesday, when teens attempted another mask-free entry, they were turned away again; most went home. Further efforts have now been hampered because a lot of the seniors need to meet attendance requirements for graduation, the young man added.

“It can be frustrating, but we’re making slow baby steps, and getting closer and closer to our goal. We’re really happy with the progress that we’ve made in just the two weeks since we started this,” Costales added.

And what about the response from other teens around Washington state?

“It has definitely reached much further than we expected it to,” Costales said.

Watch video of the Washougal High School students’ attempted mask-less walk-in here.

Listen to Dori’s entire interview with school mask resistance organizer Cade Costales:

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from noon – 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.