ABC Unified: Unvaxed student fights back
5th grader kicked out of class, forced into an isolation room; LASD searches her phone.
By Brian Maquena
March 10, 2022
Kennedy STEM Academy, ABC Unified — A local 5th grader is refusing to budge on two things: her right to a public education and unrestricted oxygen flow.
“I want to be able to see my teacher smile. I want to see my friends smile. I want to be able to breathe,” said 11-year-old Emma Gravitt at an ABC Unified board meeting. “Please vote for no more masks. Please vote to let me breathe.”
Click here for a clip of Emma’s presentation to ABC Unified board members.
Emma’s comments at ABC Unified’s March 1 board meeting was just the latest chapter in her quest for school and oxygen. Her mother, Christy Gravitt, said she won’t be allowed back to her middle elementary school—located in Artesia, California—until after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s mask mandate ends this Saturday.
“She’s not getting her academic needs met,” texted Christy, who teaches at Emma’s school, Wednesday evening. “She misses her friends. She misses her classmates. She misses her teacher.”
“The damage has already been done.”
Part of that damage relates to Emma being kicked out of her classroom, per district policy, and forced into an isolation room, where she was questioned by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy and had one of her belongings searched. Her crime? Being unvaccinated and demanding her civil rights.
Emma’s story has lit a mini firestorm in cities across the ABC Unified School District: Artesia, Hawaiian Gardens, and Cerritos. Parents have protested with signs and passed out fliers, asking others to honk in support. Those supporting Emma’s right to breathe have also utilized social media groups on Instagram and Facebook to coordinate efforts against mask-and-vaccine mandates.
Still, ABC Unified is not allowing Emma back into the classroom just yet.
“We, just like every school district in LA County, follow the LA County Department of Public Health,” said Scott Smith, communications officer for the district, who confirmed that an unmasked Emma was currently not being allowed back on campus. “We must follow these [county-mandated] protocols.”
Forced into an isolation room and searched
Emma on Monday, Jan. 24th, was pulled out of her classroom along with several other students due to them all having been exposed to someone diagnosed with Covid-19.
While several of her vaccinated classmates were allowed to reenter the classroom, Emma was told she had to go home. This was because the school district was forcing unvaccinated students to quarantine upon being exposed to those infected with Covid-19.
“We will follow the LA County Department of Public Health protocols, which were different for vaccinated and unvaccinated students,” said Smith.
State law mandated the district to follow county health department protocol, Smith said.
Such an explanation didn’t satisfy Emma, nor her parents. The father was called to pick up his daughter, while Christy continued teaching. Emma’s father told officials that his daughter was not sick and should be returned to the classroom. He argued for his daughter’s right to a public education and said the district was discriminating against his unvaccinated daughter.
Emma was put into an isolation room for about an hour and 45 minutes, Christy said.
“It’s a small room and no desks,” Christy explained, complaining about the lack of instruction for her daughter at that time. “[Emma] just was told to go on her Chrome notebook and just do like this math program that we do.”
“I’ve been a teacher there for more than 25 years,” Christy said, “and this happened to my child.”
ABC Unified’s Covid-19 protocols include quarantining those with symptoms or who were exposed to the virus into these separate rooms until they could be taken home or picked up by parents safely, Smith said. Such rooms were not meant for a long-term learning situation.
Vaccinated students were not being forced into the isolation room like Emma at the time.
Christy explained that the district forced her child’s school to set up these rooms before sending out district personnel to ensure that every school had some kind of isolation room.
A picture, published in another publication, shows Emma sitting in the isolation room, separated from the outside world by a clear plastic curtain.
There were no statistics on how many times the isolation rooms have been used by ABC Unified, per Smith, who said he didn’t think the district tracked such things.
“We’re following county department public health codes to have those isolation rooms,” he said.
Unimpressed, Emma’s parents contacted an attorney that evening before returning the next day, Tuesday or Jan. 25. There, Emma and her father were confronted by the school principal and three district officials: Dr. Crechena Wise, the director of secondary schools; Melinda Ortiz, the director of school services; and, Smith.
Unbeknownst to all three, Emma’s father had his lawyer on the telephone. He also took video of the incident.
As he watched his daughter from afar be stopped by the district officials at the front gate, Emma’s father video recorded the incident. Christy and her husband have yet to release a copy of the video.
“My daughter said, ‘I’m not leaving,’” explained Christy, who said Emma asserted to officials that she had a right to go to school.
Smith confirmed that Emma and her father arrived to Kennedy STEM Academy that day, and that Emma eventually went to the principal’s office.
District officials proceeded to confront Emma’s father as the principal stayed with Emma at the gate.
“We did ask him to stop [video recording] because we did not give him permission to do so,” said Smith, saying state law did not allow for such recording without permission.
Sheriff’s deputies were called on Emma’s father after his refusal to stop recording his interactions with district officials, Christy said.
While on campus, Emma was walked into the isolation room, during which time someone took her picture, Christy said. Later, Emma was told that she could not be recording anything as her phone was in her hand. Emma responded that she was not recording anything.
According to Christy, a Sheriff’s department deputy confronted Emma and told her that she had to hand over her cell phone so that he could ensure that she was telling the truth. Emma had resisted handing over the cell phone, but eventually the deputy took the phone and Emma played for him the last video on her phone, which involved her dog.
“This is something that my daughter is not going to forget,” Christy said. “This very much upset her.”
Smith said he could not confirm or deny Emma’s interaction with the Sheriff’s deputy as he was not in the school when Emma reportedly had her cell phone searched.
Later, someone indicated to Emma that her parents were causing the whole ordeal, while telling Emma that the situation was not her fault.
“She came home and she ended up crying,” Christy said.
ABC Unified gets blowback from Emma & parents
Emma’s father eventually took her home after the deputy searched her cell phone, Christy explained.
However, already parents had begun organizing to respond to the district’s treatment of the unvaccinated schoolchildren. Emma’s father had made contact with another parent whose son was being quarantined for the second time due to close contact with a Covid-19 infected person, Christy said.
This parent and Emma’s father both came back to the school with their children on Wednesday, Jan. 26. William Hundley, coordinator of Child Welfare and Attendance, met with Emma’s father and reviewed the state’s education code/law with him.
Emma was allowed to return to school the next day so long as she showed a negative Covid-19 test, which she did.
An article was published on the whole ordeal.
But Emma apparently had had enough.
On Feb. 21, a Monday, Emma refused to wear her mask at school.
Smith could not confirm the details of the incident as he learned about it at the March 1 board meeting.
“Half the time she’s pulling it [her facemask] down. Other kids are pulling their masks down below their nose,” Christy explained.
After being told by her teacher to put her mask on, Emma said she didn’t want to. Later, Hundley came to the school and convinced Emma to sit outside while the classroom door remained open for her to hear the teacher.
“It was freezing cold!” Christy complained.
Following the advice of their attorney, Emma’s father retrieved Emma from school.
The next morning, a Tuesday, a group of parents went to Kennedy STEM Academy to protest.
Carrying about three signs, the parents came from various schools in the district.
On Wednesday, more parents showed up—children in tow—carrying signs that said “Unmask our kids” and “Let them breath”, as well as “Honk if you’re for choice”.
The little girl’s defiance had started a movement, if only for a short while.
Smith said ABC Unified was aware of a group of parents unhappy with the state and county mandates.
The following Thursday, the movement continued to nearby Nixon Elementary, located in Cerritos near 195th Street and Bloomfield Avenue.
On March 7, this Monday, parents organized a flier-distribution event further south at Hawaiian Elementary School in the City of Hawaiian Gardens.
That same day, Smith sent out a message to the parents saying that while mask mandates were no longer in place for many activities in Los Angeles County, the same was not true for public schools till after Saturday.
Meanwhile, public officials like Lakewood City Council almost all went maskless Tuesday either at a prayer breakfast or Council meeting.
However, while adults breathed freely, young Scout troops barely susceptible to Covid-19 wore their face masks at Lakewood’s Council meeting to lead the mostly-maskless adults in the pledge of allegiance.
Like those Scout troopers, Emma must put up with the mask mandate through Saturday, even though many adults are allowed to freely breathe.
Why?
“It is very hard for me and my friends to sit in the classroom all day and not be able to breathe well,” Emma told board members March 1. “Wearing a mask makes me feel hot like I cannot breathe, sometimes sleepy and it hurts my ears a lot.”
#LetEmmaBreathe #LetScoutTroopsBreathe #LetChildrenBreathe
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on our sister publication, Lakewood Populist Report. The Gateway Populist seeks to produce content applicable to the greater Gateway region.