Despite Legal Ruling, Mills County Area School Districts Not Changing Mask Policies

A federal judge’s decision last week that put a halt to an Iowa law that prevents school boards from ordering masks be worn to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 will not change current masking protocols for the Glenwood, East Mills and Fremont-Mills school districts, say their superintendents.

All three school districts have not required masks to be worn in buildings since the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year in accordance with a state law passed last May. In a 29-page decision, Judge Robert Pratt of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, determined that the law in part “substantially increases the risk of several children with health conditions contracting COVID-19.” Pratt issued a temporary restraining order halting the law, effective immediately.

That law, Iowa Code 280.31, effectively banned school districts from mandating masks in school buildings. The statute states school districts “shall not adopt, enforce, or implement a policy that requires its employees, students, or members of the public to wear a facial covering for any purpose while on the school district’s property.”

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a vocal proponent of the law, has said she will appeal the decision.

The Council Bluffs School District did issue a revised policy stating masks are “expected” to be worn in all its buildings as of last Wednesday. Districts in Des Moines, Ames, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and a handful of other communities facing rising case numbers have instituted similar policies.

Glenwood, East Mills and Fremont-Mills are standing pat.

“We do not have any plans to change our current protocol,” said Glenwood Superintendent Devin Embray. “With any infectious disease when the spread gets over 10 percent, we take notice of that, as does public health.”

Tim Hood, superintendent of the East Mills School District has no plans to alter the school’s current masks optional policy.

“We’ve  been in school for four weeks and – knock on wood – we haven’t had any issues to date,” Hood said. “As of right now, we will handle this in much the same way we did our return to learn plan. We will monitor and adjust if we need to.”

Fremont-Mills Superin-tendent Dave Gute said while there are no plans to change his district’s masking policy, he has been in contact with their attorneys and they are in a “wait and see mode” as the legal fallout of the federal court’s decision continues.

If cases do rise at Fremont-Mills, Gute said the district would look closely at all of its COVID-19 protocols, including masking.

“We haven’t had a whole lot of cases to this point but that can change,” Gute said. “It’s been manageable and we feel really good where we’re at but going into winter, that could change things too with everyone confined.”

The suit challenging the Iowa law stemmed from a group of parents with children who have underlying medical conditions and are too young to be vaccinated. The suit was brought earlier this month by the American Civil Liberties Union on the parents behalf.

The ACLU of Iowa issued a statement last week, saying “We are grateful to the district court for blocking this dangerous law, which put vulnerable kids in harm’s way and violated their civil rights in education. We are relieved that schools across the state will now be able to protect those kids as required by federal law. No parent should be asked to choose between the safety and health of their child and their child’s ability to go to school, but that’s exactly the position that this law put parents across Iowa in.”

That argument apparently weighed heavily with Judge Pratt. In his filing, he said he based his decision on data on the effectiveness of masks in reducing spread of the virus and the recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics on mask wearing in schools.

“Because Plaintiffs have shown that Iowa Code section 280.31’s ban on mask mandates in schools substantially increases their risk of contracting the virus that causes Covid-19 and that due to their various medical conditions they are at an increased risk of severe illness or death, Plaintiffs have demonstrated that an irreparable harm exists,” Pratt wrote in his decision.

The order temporarily bars the state from enforcing the law and from districts in using their discretion to mandate masks for students, staff, teachers and visitors.

Since the start of the school year Glenwood has had 22 positive COVID-19 cases – 19 students, three staff – and 61 students who have quarantined. Currently nine students are quarantining.
Fremont-Mills has reported 12 positive cases since the start of the school year.

Hood, the East Mills superintendent, was not aware of any positive COVID-19 cases in his district.
Embray is aware of no hospitalizations among the positive cases in Glenwood, nor have their numbers approached the threshold for considering a shutdown or a more strict masking policy.

“We’re not seeing a pattern of spread through the district and while you can’t know for sure, we think most of these cases were not contracted at school,” Embray said. “It’s been mostly family members and extended family.”

Embray said district staff is over 80 percent vaccinated. The district cannot ask students their vaccination status.
Embray did confirm Glenwood has been reported to the U.S. Department of Transportation for not following the federal mandate requiring masks be worn on school buses. He declined to discuss what that report entailed because he has not yet seen any official documentation.

The superintendent did say the district was advised by legal counsel to ignore the federal mandate as it contradicted the state’s ban on mask mandates. He went on to say the recent court decision will not change that policy.

“I think it has more to do with the intent of the executive order and the footnote that went with it that basically said this was an aspirational executive order and there would not be any criminal or civil penalties for not doing it,” he said.
Glenwood sent out a memo last week to gauge parent interest in partnering with Mills County Public Health to host a series of vaccination clinics for students 12 and over.

“I’m not an authority figure to promote the vaccine,” Embray said. “We get that information from public health and let the parents make that decision. If there’s enough interest, we’d have a clinic at the middle school and the high school.”

The Opinion-Tribune

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