Jackson Gould is a 9 year old child who like so many children his age enjoys going to school, playing with friends, and interacting socially with the other students. He lives in Douglas County Colorado with his loving family and attends 4th grade at the Heritage Elementary School located in the Douglas County School District.
Oh, but in one way Jackson is a little "different". Jackson unlike many other children his age has had to contend with having a chronic medical condition known as Cystic Fibrosis.
Cystic Fibrosis is a progressive, disease that causes long-lasting lung infections and limits the ability to breathe over time.More than 30,000 children and adults in the United States have CF (70,000 worldwide) and CF affects people of every racial and ethnic group.CF does not affect cognitive or learning abilities.
Jackson works very hard to stay healthy. He does 90 minutes of airway clearance treatments each day and takes over 30 pills multiple times a day. He swims laps for an hour twice a week to strengthen his lungs. He is a gymnast, a gifted and talented student, a pianist, and an animal lover who wants to be a writer and an entrepreneur when he grows up. This has been devastating for him and his family who are now faced with making decisions they should never have been forced to make.
Sadly, Jackson Gould is also a victim of being preyed upon by adults who seem to be subhuman creatures with no soul, no heart, no feelings, and absolutely no clue to how uncaring, evil they are as they attempt to destroy this innocent youngster's life.
I personally interviewed his mother Kate Gould who is a single parent and also vetted her story as being factual.
Jackson began the current 2001-2022 school year in August with masking optional as part of the local Health Departments directive relating to the Covid Pandemic. As numbers rose and the delta variant took hold, the Tri-County Health Department issued a mandatory mask mandate for Schools.
However, the three ultra conservative Douglas County Commissioners proceeded to pull Douglas County out of Tri-County Health and create their own Board of Health appointing themselves to the board. None of them have any medical training or experience. They also appointed a diagnostic radiologist.
The first thing they did was to issue a new Public Health Order making masking optional in Douglas County. The Douglas County School District decided to sue this newly self appointed local Health Board for their making the mandatory mask mandate optional instead of following the directive issued by the Tri-County Health board and approached 9 families, of which Jackson's family was one, to join as plaintiffs. They sued the local Health Board as violating the American Disabilities Act, Individual Disabilities Act, and the Free Appropriation Act.
Judge John Kane of the 10th Circuit granted them a temporary restraining order ruling that universal masking was an appropriate accommodation considering the potential for serious complications and even death from Covid-19 for this Cystic Fibrosis population.
As they were preparing to go forward with a permanent injunction, Douglas County elected 4 new ultra conservative, anti mask candidates (who ironically ran on a "Kids First" platform) to the Board of Education. Being 4 out of 7 members they now had the majority and quickly voted themselves President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary.
Knowing that the new board would take power at the end of November, in order to get the case dismissed,the Board of Health offered to keep the temporary restraining order in place and amend their public health order to allow the school district to make their own rules about masking.
At the Dec. 7th 2021 school board meeting the 4 new members voted 4-3 to make masking optional in schools. Jackson's mother Kate made a public comment at that meeting and had to have a sheriff escort her to her car because other parents were giving her the finger and getting in her face and saying that she was using Jackson as a pawn for her own political gain.
Kate is not a public figure or a politician. She is a stay at home mom and a graduate student at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver where she will be receiving her Master of Divinity on June 3, 2022. The new mask choice rule went into effect immediately and she was faced with the awful decision of whether to send her son to school the next morning (less than 8 hours later).
The board of education said that they should work with individual principals to get accommodations so Kate sent Jackson and went straight to the school office to secure those accommodations. She was told that the principal was "too busy to see her. Kate refused to leave. After several calls to the Superintendent (who did not return her calls) and the press, she saw me after waiting in the office for two hours.
The accommodation Kate asked for was to amend her sons 504 medical plan to state that he needed for the children in his classroom to be masked. His pulmonologist wrote a letter also stating that this was the accommodation needed because individuals with CF are at a much higher risk for serious Covid-19 infection. She sent the request to her supervisor, who sent it to his, who sent it to legal and it was denied. They offered to have any unmasked individual stay 6 feet from him.
Kate did not agree to that accommodation because 1) how in the world would they monitor and enforce that in a public elementary school and 2) She was afraid it would set a precedent for them to be able to segregate him. And that is exactly what happened. In his math class, he was pulled from his usually place and put at the teachers desk, which faces away from the white boards and the rest of the class. Imagine how that made him feel? This bright, social, loving 9 year old boy who is a friend to everyone, sitting alone at the teachers desk facing the wall.
So, that is when Kate realized it was necessary to have to retain a special education attorney. Thanks to a $2000 donation from another special needs family and Kate Gerland (the Special Education Attorney) lowering her retainer fee from $3000 to $2000 she was able to hire her.
They also reiterated that the accommodation Jackson needs in his 594 plan is that all children in his class be masked. They were told that isn’t fair to the other children.They told them that they will meet with a deputy superintendent and the director of special education and try to come up with some “creative solutions.”
It also turns out that when Kate contacted the other local public school districts that mandate mask wearing and also private schools, they all told her that they were "filled up" with no room for Jackson.
We all know that anyone with the right connections could easily have a school open up one more space for Jackson Gould due to his extenuating circumstances.
If anyone CAN HELP KATE GET JACKSON INTO ONE OF THOSE "FILLED UP" safe schools please email her at: Kgould@iliff.edu
In other words instead of acting like responsible, caring human beings, the school district just dumps this 9 year old into another district instead of helping him from becoming more ill, as well as preserving his right to attend their school.
These ignorant, despicable school district Neanderthals were essentially expelling Jackson from his right to attend their school by getting rid of him.
The family is at "wits end" as they now are forced to have their Attorney file a Court Case on Jackson's behalf to attend the local school where he is supposed to be a student but in the meantime that means a long drawn out legal case while Jackson gets his education where?
Kate now realizes this will again end up having to go to court and in the meantime she will have to figure out a way to get him into a safe mask mandated school.
This not just a fight to obtain justice for a 9 year old child who is an innocent victim but also represents all the other special needs students in our Country that face the same discrimination by others who will get away with their inexcusably cruel, selfish, ignorant behavior if they are not forced legally to obey the law.
After reading this blog post, if you have any conscience and are human this is how you can help Jackson and his family who are fighting for themselves and all disabled children:
If anyone CAN HELP KATE GET JACKSON INTO ONE OF THOSE "FILLED UP" safe schools please email her at:Kgould@iliff.edu
KATE GOULD " is raising funds "because she had to retain a special education attorney to help get Jackson accommodations at school to help keep him safe during this time of pandemic. His school district, Douglas County School District in Colorado, removed masking from the schools this week despite the fact our county has high rates of community transmission and our hospitals are at 100% capacity. We requested that his 504 medical plan be amended to have children in his classroom mask to help keep him safe because Jackson has cystic fibrosis. The request has been denied and we have had to hire an attorney to help ensure we get this important accommodation met. We are so grateful for your help! Thank You."
If you want to contact Kate Gould directly by email she can be reached at:Kgould@iliff.edu
Their fundraising goal is $5,000 and they have raised as of this date $2,856 from 47 donors. Any donation amount you can afford is welcome as this is a truly righteous cause and deserves your support. To donate to Jackson's legal fund (I just donated) please click on the link below:
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