Stafford School Nurse Suspended After Refusing To Wear Face Mask

MANAHAWKIN, NJ — A school nurse has been suspended from the Stafford Township School District after she reported to work without wearing a face mask for two days in protest of the mask mandate.

Erin Pein, 35, called the mask mandate “child abuse,” in a Facebook video posted by Republican gubernatorial candidate Hirsh Singh.

"The mask mandate in schools is 100 percent child abuse. I see the damage first-hand of what's being done to our kids, and I can't just sit and be complicit anymore," she said. "I didn't think that voicing my concerns was going to make a difference, so I decided that I was going to do my own form of a protest."

Pein messaged school officials that she would no longer be wearing a face mask at work. On the second day she showed up to work refusing to wear a face mask, school officials told Pein that she would be suspended and she was escorted out of the school building.

Pein said she has not seen a “single child wearing (face masks) correctly, or staff.” She alleges that face masks are not effective even if they are worn correctly.

“Because they’re being so inappropriately, unsafely used, it’s really dangerous to these kids to wear them physically, besides all the emotional and developmental damage being done,” Pein said. "My goal here for this whole thing, telling everybody about the situation, is really to get people to wake up and realize that this mandate isn't safe."

Her remarks contradict the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidance on wearing masks. According to the CDC, wearing face masks is a "critical step" in reducing the spread of COVID-19.

The CDC's latest guidance suggests that face masks are no longer necessary when outdoors or indoors in small groups of fully vaccinated people.

Though the CDC still advises caution in public indoor spaces where "the vaccination status of other people or whether they are at increased risk for severe COVID-19 is likely unknown."

Pein has been suspended without pay since April 20. Superintendent George Chidiac did not immediately return Patch's request for comment on Pein's suspension.

Singh will attend the Stafford Township Board of Education meeting on May 10 in support of Pein, according to a statement on his Facebook page.

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