We all knew that kid — the one who, when their way of playing the game was tested or questioned — took their ball and went home, leaving the rest of the children to scramble up a new game.

And so it goes with masking rules in schools — as in lieu of a government ball, institutions must figure out policies that allow students, teachers and staff to gather indoors safely once the school bell rings.

As with the schoolyard kids, the aftermath of a dropped or disappeared ball isn’t entirely bad.

A new game emerges and control shifts.

School districts across the state are making their own calls on masking, a local approach blessed by the state board of education on Tuesday. Using local data has already yielded a variety of approaches across the state, from mandates to bans, with unhappy vocal parents in all of them.

Traverse City Area Public School is adopting a wait-and-see approach, with Superintendent John VanWagoner saying Monday TCAPS will “strongly recommend” people wear masks while in school buildings, but won’t require them in schools.

A federal requirement mandated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (which recommended last month that all people on school grounds wear masks indoors, vaccinated against COVID-19 or not) means masks worn while on school buses.

So, in TCAPS for example, masks worn on buses of 48-72 people could be removed before entering a building with 168 to 1,629 people.

It makes about as much sense as anything else in this government bungle.

In May, when the CDC made a sweeping announcement that masks need only be worn by the unvaccinated using an honor system, it set up a strange paradigm. Summer mask wearers could get side-eye from both camps — the vaccinated-and-critical-of-the-unvaccinated and the unvaccinated who see masks as a sign of fear.

We don’t know how this will translate to the schoolyard, but the adults haven’t been a beacon of maturity.

Non-COVID-19 vaccine rates of younger children have dipped across the board in Michigan, as well as other states.

The Associated Press reported Monday that childhood vaccination rates dropped below 70 percent in more than half of Michigan’s counties. Only Antrim (69.8 percent) and Benzie (66.3) are among those counties. Grand Traverse (76.9), Kalkaska (71.8) and Leelanau (71.1) are above the 70-percent mark.

Children under 12 don’t have the option to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Until a vaccine is available for them, protecting them is our responsibility.

That kid who took the ball and went home, gave up when the going got tough. Most parents want their kids to know a better way — to be able to learn these schoolyard lessons safely.