As the state sees soaring rates of the highly contagious COVID-19 Delta variant, Arkansas school districts will—at least for now—be able to set their own local mask requirements.
A Pulaski County judge granted a preliminary injunction Friday pausing a state law that prohibits local officials, including school boards, from setting mask mandates. That order, made in response to a lawsuit by two public school parents, will put the law’s enforcement on hold while the court considers whether the law violates the state constitution.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed the law, Act 1002, in April, but recently announced that he regretted it. As vaccination rates waned and hospitals filled in his state, Hutchinson declared a new public health emergency and called the legislature into a special session to give school districts the freedom to set their own policies.
The judge’s Friday ruling came hours after the Arkansas legislature ended that session after three days without taking any action.
The state’s debate comes as schools around the country wrestle with how to respond to the Delta variant. Eight states prohibit schools from setting mask mandates or from requiring masks without allowing students to opt out, according to Burbio, a website that has tracked schools’ responses to the pandemic.
In hearings this week, Arkansas lawmakers heard from opponents of mask mandates who shared misinformation about the virus and mitigation practices. One state lawmaker told a pediatric infectious disease physician who testified in favor of local mask mandates to do more research on treatments that have long been debunked by epidemiologists.
Parents who supported mask mandates said they feared their districts would be forced into sudden closures or large-scale quarantines if they couldn’t contain the virus’s spread. Last year, the state required masks in schools for most of the academic year, later leaving the decision to local school boards until the new law passed, tying their hands. Parents said they feared the Delta variant, and possibly more contagious strains, would spread more quickly.
In addition to the parent plaintiffs, two school districts have sued over Act 1002. They include Little Rock, one of the state’s largest, and Marion, a 4,000-student eastern Arkansas district where more than 800 students and 10 staff members have had to quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure a week after classes started earlier this month.
Even as they push for schools to reopen for in-person learning, federal officials have called for “layered mitigation strategies,” including mask wearing, to reduce the risk of transmission in buildings.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called last week for universal mask-wearing in schools. The agency, which previously said vaccinated students may not need to wear masks, cited emerging research about the Delta variant. Masks help prevent the wearer from contracting the virus and, worn universally, slow spread among populations, case studies have found.
In calling the special session, Hutchinson said he was especially concerned about children under 12, who are not yet eligible to be vaccinated. After its conclusion, he tweeted that he was “disappointed” by the lack of action.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox issued the preliminary injunction pausing the ban Friday after attorneys for parent plaintiffs argued, among other things, that Act 1002 violated the equal protection clause by allowing private schools to set mask requirements while restricting public schools from doing so.
As states like Arkansas, Florida, and Texas have sought to prohibit local school mask requirements, other states are pushing schools to adopt more stringent virus mitigation practices.
In Virginia, for example, Gov. Ralph Northam has said that school districts will be in violation of state law if they do not require masks in compliance with CDC guidance.
This information is no longer being updated. The last data update was on May 23, 2022.
MASK MANDATE BAN IN EFFECT
MASK MANDATE BAN BLOCKED, SUSPENDED, OR NOT BEING ENFORCED
MASK REQUIREMENT IN EFFECT
PREVIOUSLY HAD MASK REQUIREMENT
NOTES
In January 2022, the Missouri attorney general, Eric Schmitt, sued some school districts that required masks, citing a November ruling by a county judge that said local health orders tied to COVID-19 were illegal. (The ruling was interpreted differently by different districts.) The state’s treasurer announced he would also crack down on schools with mask mandates. In mid-March, Schmitt began dropping lawsuits against school districts that no longer required masks. On May 19, 2022 Schmitt announced new lawsuits against several districts that had reinstated mask requirements.
On Feb. 23, 2022, New Hampshire’s governor announced the state was no longer recommending universal indoor masking and therefore schools have to end mask mandates, arguing they violate state education department rules. Soon after, the department advised districts that the mandates “are inconsistent with” their rules. There’s disagreement over whether districts still have the authority to require masks, but at least one district changed its policy in response. A bill that would have banned mask mandates was vetoed by Gov. Sununu in May 2022.
Updated 5/23/2022 | Sources: Local media reports, Education Week reporting | Learn more here
