Bill bans mask mandates in public schools

Republican lawmakers did an about-face on facemasks in schools in the most recent version of the state education budget bill. 

The initial language, one line of the deal Gov. Doug Ducey hammered out with Senate and House Republican leadership in May, would have codified school districts and charter schools having the final authority on face mask requirements. 

The new language does the opposite and would permanently prohibit school districts and charters from requiring facial coverings. Individuals would still be able to choose to wear them. 

The change came after lawmakers such as Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, and Sen. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, threatened to withhold their votes. 

“And to think until I publicly exposed it, Fauci Followers in the AZ Senate Leadership along w/@dougducey were almost successful in sneaking language into the budget giving school districts the power to force students to wear masks for any reason & for as long as they want,” Michelle Ugenti-Rita tweeted on June 5.  

School districts and charters have had that individual responsibility since April. That’s when Ducey rescinded his executive order from July 2020 that required them to implement a face covering requirement for everyone over the age of 5. 

The change was met with confusion and, in some cases, outrage, as districts made individual decisions on how to handle their masking policy roughly five weeks before the end of the semester.   

While the school where Rep. Steve Kaiser’s children attend ditched its mask requirement, he accused local school boards of not listening to parents. He said the mask issue was a big one for the Republican base. 

“I believe in local control, too, but I’m not about to let local control decide what’s best for my kids medically,” the Phoenix Republican said during a caucus meeting late last month. “I should decide that.” 

Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, pushed for the language to include visitors, noting an incident in Scottsdale where people came to a school board meeting to protest critical race theory but refused to wear masks, leading to the board to recess the meeting. 

Rep. Melody Hernandez, D-Tempe, said the flip-flop was to secure budget votes from lawmakers who tend to “thrive on disinformation about coronavirus, masks and the vaccine and the like.”  

Hernandez, a paramedic, said she doesn’t think such a move would have an immediate effect on public health because “hopefully we’re moving past the pandemic,” but that it seemed short-sighted. 

“If this is successful, it’s going to unnecessarily tie the hands of administrators and educators if there’s another airborne pandemic,” she said. 

Save Our Schools Arizona supports keeping mask mandate authority local. 

“We support keeping that authority at the individual district level where locally-elected board members were voted in to lead on their schools’ policies,” communications director Dawn Penich-Thacker said. 

Other states are also looking at the issue of who should be able to make mask mandates for schools. While most states either still have a state level mask mandate for schools or are allowing individual districts to make decisions, a handful are stripping that authority from the local boards. 

In May, Iowa banned mask mandates by schools and cities. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also signed an executive order prohibiting mask mandates in schools. In Georgia, there’s no outright ban, but an executive order from the governor says schools can no longer “rely on the Public Health State of Emergency as a basis for requiring students or workers to wear a face covering.” And in Idaho, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin signed a school mask mandate ban while Gov. Brad Little was out-of-state. When he returned, he rescinded it.