Masks are optional again in this NC school district. Students have sued to change that
A North Carolina judge will rule Thursday on whether to temporarily block the return of a mask-optional plan for the Lincoln County schools after a group of students and their parents sued to stop it.
In all, 13 students and their families filed the complaint this week against the Lincoln County Board of Education’s 4-3 decision on Sept. 14 to drop its mask mandate and end most student quarantines.
The complaint alleges in part that the changes violate the plaintiffs’ constitutional guarantee to a safe education. The mask-optional policy went into effect Wednesday.
The divided school board made the change to stop requiring masks in the classroom even as a resurgent COVID-19 continues to batter the largely rural county east of Charlotte. Lincoln County’s 14.9% rate of positive COVID tests far exceeds the state average.
According to the Lincoln County Health Department, 36 percent of the county’s new COVID cases over the past two weeks have struck children 17 and younger.
At least one school employee has also died. On Sept. 13, the virus claimed the life of third-grade teacher Cruceta Jeffeirs.
The lawsuit calls on the courts to block the new policy until the school board’s scheduled meeting on Oct. 12. Under a new N.C. law, school boards must meet once a month to vote on mask mandates.
Superior Court Judge James Morgan promised a ruling by Thursday.
One of the students’ attorneys, Luke Largess of Charlotte, told the judge during a two-hour court hearing Tuesday that the board’s decision to make masks optional defies the advice of medical experts, violates its own rules, and unnecessarily puts schoolchildren at risk.
”It’s very dangerous, very dangerous. That is the only reason why we’re here,” Largess said, according to Observer news partner, WBTV.
Asheville attorney Dean Shatley, who is representing the board, countered in court that the lawsuit attempts to preempt the board’s clear authority and should be thrown out.
”This is an extraordinary ask of this court, asking the court to interject itself in policy-making decisions which the board has the right to do,” Shatley said, according to the TV station. ”If a mask mandate was necessary, there are other agencies that could have controlled that environment. They choose not to. They choose to leave it at the discretion of local elected board.”
For now, Lincoln County is one of only five school districts in North Carolina that does not require masks. Federal, state and local health officials say the coverings are the most effective means of slowing the spread of disease in the classroom. But as the pandemic becomes more politicized, masks have become a target of growing derision from families and politicians opposed to government mandates.
“This is for control,” said Kevin Sanders of Iron Station, who spoke in opposition to mandatory masks in schools at the board’s Sept. 14 meeting. “Stop giving in to fear and emotional decision-making and start using logic and risk analysis. We can’t stop living because we’re worried about dying.”
“You need to listen to the doctors,” countered Iron Station resident Stacy Pattison. “Lincoln County students would suffer the consequences, with large numbers at home quarantining.”
Courts are increasingly being called in to settle the argument.
On Tuesday, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order that rolls back South Carolina’s ban on mask mandates in schools. U.S. District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis said the year-old law discriminates against children with disabilities and violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal laws, The State newspaper reported.
“It is noncontroversial that children need to go to school,” the judge wrote. “And, they are entitled to any reasonable accommodation that allows them to do so. No one can reasonably argue that it is an undue burden to wear a mask to accommodate a child with disabilities.”
This story was originally published September 29, 2021 at 12:10 PM.
