When Ponderosa High School Teacher Mike Wilkes was placed on paid leave for lending support to students who removed their masks in protest of the state COVID-19 requirement to wear them, he wasn’t surprised.
“I understood the consequences and the irony is we’re in a system where adults are all afraid to do the right thing, including many who agree with me, but we’re being pitted against each other,” Wilkes told the Southern California Record. “It takes people to stand up and live true to their convictions in order to fix the problem in California.”