Members of the Eau Claire Area School Board and school district staff members rise to leave a meeting after a 10-minute recess began Monday evening. The recess was called by President Tim Nordin because some audience members refused to wear masks. (Valley Media Works video screengrab)

The Monday, Sept. 20, meeting of of the Eau Claire school board came to an abrupt end when members of the audience refused to wear face masks.

Just a few minutes into the meeting – viewable below in a video from Valley Media Works – School Board President Tim Nordin addressed the meeting’s in-person audience, which was off-camera:

“At this time, I note that there are some members of our audience who have chosen to join without masks,” he said at about the 4-minute, 25-second mark in the video below. “We will not hold a meeting in the presence of those who will not help us be safe by wearing a mask. I will at this time then be motioning for a 10-minute recess. You may opt to put on a mask or opt to leave and watch the meeting virtually. If you have chosen not to put on a mask in that time, at the end we will adjourn the meeting tonight. I know we have several people here who would like to be heard. We are not going to be able to do that if we do not have the cooperation of our community to hold that meeting safely.”

At that point, Nordin made a motion for a 10-minute recess.

“Where’s the law?” a voice said from off camera.

“These are the rules that we have for our meeting,” Nordin replied.

“See your rules don’t matter because you’re paid by ...” the voice answered, but Nordin continued with his motion, and the board members voted “aye” in unison.

The board and staff members then stood up and began exiting a door at the back of the room, while Nordin stopped and addressed the audience.

“We are recessed for 10 minutes,” he said. “We will reconvene at 7:12. If at that time we do not have everyone in the audience with a mask over their mouth and nose we will adjourn the meeting for tonight. We want to be able to hear everybody, we want to be able to listen, but we cannot do that if we cannot have a safe meeting.”

The video then skips forward to a point where the board members are filing back to their seats.

Nordin spoke again: “At this time, because we are trying to run a safe meeting, and we are not willing to endanger the safety of our community or ourselves or, most importantly honestly to my mind, is our staff that’s here tonight. We will not hold a meeting in person. … After the adjournment we are about to do, we will reschedule this meeting for next Monday, the 27th of September. We will hold it in a blended model, the board and executive team will be in person. All public participation will be via Webex.”

Nordin then moved to adjourn and gaveled the meeting to a close.

Under rules adopted by the school district over the summer, all students, staff, visitors inside Eau Claire public school buildings are required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status.