NC GOP lawmakers reject ending monthly required school board votes on face masks
North Carolina lawmakers rejected Wednesday changing a state law that requires local school boards to hold monthly votes on their face mask rules.
Local and state school leaders want to eliminate the required monthly votes that have brought protests and contentious meetings to local school boards across the state. Democratic lawmakers called it a matter of public safety to drop the requirement while Republican legislators said they want to ensure that the public is heard.
A proposal to end the monthly face mask votes was rejected by the GOP-controlled state House on a 51-41 vote Wednesday. All the Democrats presented voted to drop the requirement. Only one Republican present did not vote to keep the requirement.
“The General Assembly enacted this masking vote policy nearly unanimously,” House Speaker Tim Moore tweeted Wednesday after the vote. “We’re maintaining that law. It’s important for parents to continue to have their say over policies that impact students’ educational experience.”
But Rep. Amos Quick, a Guilford County Democrat, said that state lawmakers have the advantage of the General Assembly Police when they are meeting.
“These school board meetings are getting more and more contentious,” Quick said, and called it a public safety issue.
‘Violence’ unfolding at school meetings
In August, state lawmakers approved a wide-ranging school COVID-19 relief bill that included provisions such as allowing schools to offer remote learning in a COVID-related emergency. It also included a section mandating monthly school board votes on masks. Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, signed the bill.
Most of the state’s 115 school districts are requiring face coverings. They have to vote monthly to keep those policies.
Threats have been made against some school board members, and vandalism has occurred at some meetings. It’s not uncommon now for people who want to attend school board meetings to be scanned by handheld metal detectors for weapons.
Police officers are also present now at some school board meetings.
“As education leaders in our state, we are united by our fierce passion for serving students and in our commitment to providing all students and those serving our students with a safe environment,” State Superintendent Catherine Truitt, State Board of Education chairman Eric and board vice chairman Alan Duncan said in a joint statement Tuesday
“As we continue to see instances of violence unfold during some local school board meetings, we are yet again unified. The increased hostility and threats of force that we have seen across the state are not reflective of what we expect and ask of our own students: treating others with kindness and respect.”
Cooper also addressed the contentious school board meetings at a recent press briefing about the pandemic.
“Threats, bullying, intimidation — none of this belongs in our public schools, particularly by adults,” Cooper said. “Remember, our children are watching.”
The North Carolina School Boards Association has asked state lawmakers to drop the monthly voting requirement, saying the law is exacerbating the safety issues that school boards are facing.
“It’s been said by legislative leadership that this provision will create transparency,” Bruce Mildwurf, NCSBA director of government relations, said in a Sept. 21 letter to legislators.. “Unfortunately, it has instead created more division within communities, ignited emotions and additional stress to what was already a highly flammable topic.
GOP rejects change to mask vote
Rep. Rosa Gill, a Wake County Democrat, sponsored the failed amendment Wednesday to a different education bill. It would have only required school boards to vote on masks if they were changing their policy.
House Minority Leader Robert Reives, a Chatham County Democrat, said the amendment wouldn’t have changed parents’ opportunities to address their school boards at meetings.
“What this is saying is that once the decision has been made … either to not wear face coverings or to wear face coverings, that that decision doesn’t have to be revisited every month,” Reives said.
Rep. John Torbett, a Gaston County Republican, said that the monthly votes are good for open meetings and letting the public speak on issues.
“This kind of mandate forced on people, a lot of whom are very upset about it, should be revisited,” said Rep. Larry Pittman, a Cabarrus County Republican.
This story was originally published September 29, 2021 at 1:06 PM with the headline "NC GOP lawmakers reject ending monthly required school board votes on face masks."
