Litchfield Elementary School District board members voted unanimously in a special meeting Tuesday to require masks for students and staff while indoors at the district’s 16 elementary and middle schools, leaving parents the choice to opt-out.
The district is currently seeing higher COVID-19 case numbers during the first two weeks of school than it had at the height of COVID last year.
The board approved a “blanket” opt-out option, meaning parents are given the option to send their children to school without a mask. The school board did not provide details on what the opt-out process would look like, but indicated parents might need to fill out paperwork.
The mandate will go into effect on all LESD campuses on Thursday, Aug. 19, and will expire Sept. 28, unless the board chooses to extend the mandate at a later date.
The board is betting that even with an opt-out clause, more students will wear masks, and the district can reduce its numbers of COVID cases and those in quarantine.
The decision comes one day after a Maricopa —County Superior Court ruling upheld-for the time being — Phoenix Union High School District’s mask requirement.
A PUHSD teacher challenged his district’s mask rule in court on the grounds that it defied a state law passed in June that bans public and charter schools from mandating masks.
The challenge was rejected since the law does not take effect until Sept. 29.
Masks were previously optional within LESD schools since the start of the fall semester on Aug. 2. The district cited state law as its reason for going mask-optional.
Ducey may withhold federal dollars from districts that require masks
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey announced Tuesday he will punish districts that mandate masks as he divides up federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan to increase per-pupil funding. That money will be only for schools that are “following all state laws” as of Aug. 27.
LESD could be eligible to receive a grant of $1.8 million, according to district Superintendent Jodi Gunning. It is unclear, however, if the district would be in violation of the law by mandating masks before the ban takes effect at the end of September.
“From what I understand...we would not be breaking the law if we required masks until Sept. 28, is that correct?” board President Danielle Clymer asked at the meeting.
“That was our understanding based on the judge’s ruling yesterday,” Gunning responded, adding that she had not yet received any information besides the grant announcement. “That’s really all we have right now,”she said.
The board was in agreement that it did not intend to defy the governor’s ban once implemented.
There was some debate among board members whether to allow parents to opt-out, with board member Melissa Zuidema stating she would not support an opt-out clause.
“We’ve had more cases than we ever had in a single week last year when the kids were wearing masks,” Zuidema said. “I think we have a lot more support than we thought we did to have a mask mandate,” she said, based on communications from parents in recent days.
Jeremy Hoenack, who supports giving parents the choice to mask their children, seemed against approving a mandate, even with the option to opt-out. Even as Hoenack argued against a mask mandate, he considered an opt-out option to be pointless.
“A mask mandate with an opt-out is kind of not a mandate,” he said. Hoenack eventually did vote in favor of the mandate, which was unanimously passed by the five-member board.
Dr. Tara Armstead spoke strongly in favor of an opt-out clause, arguing a mask mandate with no opt-out could create distrust and potentially lead to parents abandoning the district altogether.
The mask issue, “shouldn’t be something that creates more mistrust in our community,” Armstead said, stating that masks may also impede the learning of some younger students and those who have disabilities.
District COVID cases, quarantine numbers far worse than previous year
Even at the height of COVID last year, LESD was not seeing the level of cases and people in quarantine that it has seen just three weeks into the fall semester.
The district is reporting 88 positive COVID cases as of Friday, Aug. 13, far surpassing the highest numbers the district had previously seen — just 22 cases in mid-April.
There are nearly 500 current active quarantine cases in the district. The previous record was just 156 quarantine cases.
“Last year we did not have any outbreaks,” district Superintendent Jodi Gunning said at the virtual meeting. “This year, already in the second week, we have four schools which have had outbreaks.”
Madeline Ackley can be reached at mackley@iniusa.org or found on Twitter @Mkayackley.
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