In symbolic move and split vote, committee rejects mask mandate

August 17, 2021

Steve Rogers,

UPDATE POSTED 7:45 P.M. TUESDAY, AUG. 17, 2021

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WTVQ) – A legislative subcommittee Tuesday made a largely symbolic rejection of mask mandates approved by the Kentucky Board of Education and the Kentucky Department of Public Health for school districts and regulated childcare centers for children 2 and over.

State Education Commissioner Jason E. Glass was joined by Kentucky Board of Education Chair Lu Young to testify before the Kentucky General Assembly’s Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee for nearly three hours regarding the KBE’s recently adopted emergency regulation requiring universal masking in schools.

“None of us wanted to be in a situation where we were continuing to battle COVID-19, the sickness and death it creates and the mitigation steps that we have all had to live with for these past 18 months,” Glass said. “If there is anything that should unite us on this issue, it is that we would all like to have this behind us and as soon as possible.”

Following the discussion with Glass and Young, the Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee voted 5-2 to find the board’s regulation deficient.

State Rep. Mary Lou Marzian described the proceedings as “political theatre,” as both Glass and Young faced an onslaught of questions and comments related to the regulation throughout the meeting.

The 38-year nurse said she is supportive of the science and data that supports the use of masks in schools and appreciates the board’s emergency regulation.

“I want to say thank you from my district. Thank you from my school superintendent. Thank you from my daughter and my son-in-law, who teach in public schools and my grandchildren who attend public schools and are happy to wear their masks,” Marzian said.

Individuals and groups signed up to speak at the meeting in favor and against the KBE’s emergency regulation, including the Kentucky Student Voice Team.

Last year, the group surveyed nearly 10,000 students representing 119 of Kentucky’s 120 counties, hoping to better understand the student experience throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings suggested students yearned for a return to in-person instruction.

“The Kentucky Student Voice Team strongly supports the statewide mask mandate for schools, and the Kentucky Board of Education’s regulation,” said Pragya Upreti, a senior at Lafayette High School (Fayette County). “While we were hopeful to return to school this year without masks, rising COVID-19 cases and the spread of the Delta variant have clearly made doing so unsafe.”

Also speaking during the meeting was Shannon Stocker, an Oldham County parent whose daughter, Cassidy, received her 16th chemotherapy treatment on Aug. 12.

Cassidy is battling brain cancer and recently received her third COVID-19 immunization, a booster shot, because her cancer treatments compromise her immune system. Upon the approval of the board’s emergency regulation, her oncology team approved her return to in-person instruction for the first time in over 500 days.

“Children like mine, whose lives are literally at risk if they catch the Delta variant, deserve better,” Shannon said. “No one’s choice to wear a mask is more important than my child’s right to live.”

Masks, along with other layered mitigation strategies schools and districts successfully implemented last school year, are necessary for continued in-person instruction for the 2021-2022 school year, Glass said.

“The people working and learning in our schools know how to do this,” he said. “They have proven that by using masking, in combination with several other COVID-19 mitigation efforts, our schools can stay open for in-person learning.”

Young added that there are several times throughout the school day when students can lower or remove their masks, including when they are outdoors.

In Kentucky, emergency regulations are for 270 days, but members of the KBE indicated they would call a special meeting and withdraw or amend the regulation based upon changes in guidance from state and national public health officials.

“It has never been the intent of this board to extend the face covering requirement any longer than is necessary to slow the spread of the virus and reduce the number of quarantine days that keep students out of school,” Young said.

Rep. David Hale, co-chair of the subcommittee, said he believes the decision on whether students need to wear masks should be kept at the local level.

“I am not anti-mask. I encourage people that want to wear a mask to do that, do it properly, do it correctly,” Hale said. “I am certainly not anti-vaccination. I believe that is one of the things we need to promote to get through this and to beat this. … I also believe that the local school boards, our local superintendents and those school boards especially that were elected into those positions, are the ones that we need to be listening to locally.”

Though the subcommittee found the regulation to be deficient, it was not repealed. It was sent to Gov. Andy Beshear, who upheld the board’s emergency regulation and indicated it would remain in effect.

“The Kentucky Board of Education and Kentucky Department of Education remain committed to protecting the health and safety of all students and to keeping in-person learning available,” Glass said following the hearing.

“Masking, in accordance with the advice of state and national public health organizations is an important part of that effort. We hold that the board’s emergency regulation was appropriate, within the board’s legal authority, and that the process followed to put it in place was sound. We all look forward to the day when these mitigation efforts become unnecessary.”

UPDATE POSTED 6:30 P.M. TUESDAY, AUG. 17, 2021

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WTVQ) – A group of lawmakers say the department of education’s school mask mandate is “Deficient”. That decision in Frankfort came after nearly three hours of heated testimony. Often there are two sides to every argument but that wasn’t the case for this controversial topic On Tuesday commonwealth leaders listened to multiple points of view all circling around health and safety were brought to the table.

“It’s very uncomfortable its hard to breathe my son has chronic asthma so wearing a mask is depriving him of the good oxygen that he need,” explains mom, Kim Harnois who tells ABC 36 News that having her son go without a mask is better for his health.

Some young students on the other hand worry their health could be compromised if a mask isn’t worn in school. Cassidy for example has brain cancer.

“I will feel unsafe because my numbers drop. They drop every time after chemo. For me if my counts get low and I’m at school and I happen to get Covid, it could end my life and that scares me,” says Cassidy.

Some students without pre-existing conditions like Lafayette High School senior, Pragya Upeti says they want masks to stay on. She’s says it’s not only for her health…But also so she can stay in school in-person.

“Spending nearly my entire junior year of high school on a virtual platform wasn’t easy. I wasn’t able to receive the same level of education to the same standard as before the pandemic and I was not alone in that,” says Upeti.

Sara Durand with the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy suggested that because every child has different needs, maybe the solution is leave the decision to mask kids up to their parents.

“If you want to mask your children you should have the right to do that I fully support that…But for those parents who don’ support masking they feel helpless in this battle,” explains Durand.

Right now, lawmakers say they are somewhat helpless, too.

They voted 5-2 on a party line vote to determine the mask mandate “Deficient”, however they have no authority to change it. Following state law, the Governor reviewed the mandate and quickly found it should stay in place.

Lawmakers can take up the issue further when the general assembly begins its session in January.

ORIGINAL STORY POSTED 5 P.M. AUG. 17, 2021

The 5-2 decision along party lines came after more than three hours of comments from people on both sides of the issue.

The Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee has no real authority other than to possibly make recommendations to the Legislature when it convenes next year.

“Local superintendents and school boards need to be trusted to make the best decision for their district,” said state Rep. David Hale said, who co-chairs the committee. “Each of the 171 school districts has their own set of needs, all of which are known by their elected officials.”

Subcommittee members heard three hours of testimony from the public, providing many Kentuckians the first opportunity to speak either against or in favor of the regulations since the public hearings the agencies are required to hold will not take place until late September.

Emotions ran high as parents and advocates expressed their frustration at both the mask mandate itself and the disregard for decisions already made by local school boards.

For the past several months, many parents and students have looked forward to the start of the school year, after almost an entire school year of remote learning. In anticipation of the new school year, locally elected school boards across the state held meetings with parents, students and other stakeholders to consider required face coverings.

Just hours after the Local Superintendent’s Advisory Council advised the Kentucky Board of Education to postpone the emergency regulation, cautioning the role of local leadership and need to determine local metrics, the Kentucky Board of Education voted to approve the emergency regulation.

Representative Randy Bridges, R-Paducah, noted that the Kentucky School Board is not elected by local school boards. In fact, the Governor reorganized the entire board as one of his first acts in office, making him the first governor in modern history to do so.

“Both myself and my colleagues question whether these actions are the true intent of the school board or if they are just another extension of the governor’s sweeping arm overstepping his authority,” Bridges said. “Local school boards have once again been muted and disregarded, favoring an unelected board hand-picked by the Governor.”

Others noted the five members of the committee were half the number of people who make up the state Board of Education, which is appointed from every region of the state.

The state board’s mandate can be rescinded at any time the state’s COVID surge slows and was done on an emergency basis, as required by a law approved earlier this year by the Republican-led Legislature, because school’s were starting.

The Committee voted along party lines to find the regulation deficient.