El Dorado School Board adopts new mask policy; district responds to lawsuit

El Dorado School District Superintendent Jim Tucker speaks during an August school board meeting as President Susan Turbeville, left, and member Renee Skinner, right, listen. (News-Times file)
El Dorado School District Superintendent Jim Tucker speaks during an August school board meeting as President Susan Turbeville, left, and member Renee Skinner, right, listen. (News-Times file)


The El Dorado School District adopted another new policy on masking during a specially-called school board meeting held on Friday.

A new resolution adopted unanimously by the school board changes the way the district decides whether students will be required to wear masks at school.

The resolution calls for the district (ESD) to use the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement's (ACHI) weekly reports on new COVID-19 cases in a school district's area to determine whether masks will be required.

Changing guidelines

The ESD has changed its masking policy several times already this year.

On Aug. 16, the school board voted 4-3 to mandate masks for all students, staff, faculty and visitors on all ESD campuses. Students were permitted to take their masks off when eating or drinking in the cafeteria and when outside.

The school board subsequently voted unanimously on Nov. 16 to lift mask requirements following a drop in cases and Union County's positivity rate. At the time, they empowered Superintendent Jim Tucker to reinstate the mask mandate if the local positivity rate rose above 8%.

Last Monday, the district announced that students would again have to mask up following a surge in cases during the Thanksgiving holiday.

The school board decided on Friday to hinge the masking decision on the ACHI's district-level trend table, which shows the rate of new known infections over a two week period per 10,000 residents within each public school district in the state.

The ACHI publishes a new map each week that shows every school district in the state color-coded according to how many new COVID-19 cases are identified per 10,000 residents of the district's area in the 14 days preceding the report.

Districts were zero to nine new cases identified over the previous 14 days are colored dark green on the ACHI's map. Those with 10-19 new cases are light green; with 20-29 new cases, yellow; with 30-49 new cases, orange; with 50-99 new cases, red; and with 100 or more new cases, purple.

According to the school board's new resolution, if the district's trend is color-coded light or dark green, students won't have to wear masks. If the district's trend is color-coded red or purple, students will have to wear masks.

If the district trends yellow or orange on a given week, students will be required to wear a mask if they did the week before; so, for example, if the district trends red one week, and orange the next, students will have to mask up both weeks.

Also, if the district is orange two weeks in a row, students will have to wear masks the second week and until cases in the district's area trend down again.

If the district is designated red or purple, masks will continue to be required until the district is designated yellow or green.

The district will announce each week whether masks will be required through the next week. Taylon Steele, marketing director for the ESD, said the weekly decisions will be posted to the district's website and social media accounts.

Per the new policy, masks won't be required on ESD campuses next week, though the district does recommend that everyone wear a mask.

ACHI data

The ACHI's data on cases is taken from the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH), which has tracked the number of COVID-19 cases, recoveries and deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The ACHI's population data is from the United States Census Bureau's American Community Survey - Education Tabulation based on 2014-2018 estimates.

As of Monday, Nov. 29, the ESD was classified as yellow, meaning 20-29 new cases had been identified in the preceding two weeks.

According to the ACHI, there were 20-29 new cases per 10,000 residents of the Parkers Chapel School District identified in the two weeks before Nov. 29 as well. Between 10 and 19 cases were identified per 10,000 residents of the Smackover-Norphlet, Strong-Huttig and Junction City school districts in the same period.

COVID locally

COVID cases rose throughout the week in Union County, with 87 new cases added between Monday, Nov. 29, and Saturday. In the period from Monday, Nov. 22, to Sunday, Nov. 28, only 43 new cases were added to the county's total, so the number of new cases identified in the county more than doubled last week compared to the week before.

The county also surpassed 100 active cases on Friday, Dec. 3, for the first time since Oct. 30. There were 115 active cases in Union County as of Saturday, and the seven-day positivity rate in the county was over 17%.

According to a report on COVID cases in schools produced by the ADH on Dec. 2, there were eight active COVID cases in the ESD that day. Since the school year started, 146 cases have been identified in the ESD, including 27 in staff and faculty and 107 in students.

The Smackover-Norphlet School District reportedly had 11 active cases on Dec. 2. There, 75 cases have been identified this school year, including 10 in staff and faculty and 59 in students.

Two local residents' deaths that resulted from COVID-19 were also reported last week.

Lawsuit

A lawsuit filed by several parents against the district, school board and Tucker is ongoing.

Parents Luke Baston, Clifford O. Wilson III, Jamie Wilson and Karen Lynn Dunn, who are represented by attorneys at Little Rock's Story Law Firm, allege in the suit that the ESD, school board and Tucker violated their fundamental rights as lined out in the state's constitution by mandating masks, and that the district's mask mandate was imposed illegally.

The suit asks for a temporary restraining order to be issued to prevent the district from enforcing any mask mandate.

Attorneys from the Friday, Eldredge and Clark firm who are representing the district, school board and Tucker, responded to the suit's allegations in filings on Dec. 2.

According to the district's response, the ESD's mask mandate is legal because government entities, including local school boards, are permitted to take measures -- such as requiring vaccinations, according to case law cited in the response, or, in this case, face masks -- to protect public health.

"By implementing a policy that promotes student health, safety, well-being, and achievement, the District acted well within its authority, and indeed its mandate, to ensure the suitable, efficient, and safe operation of its schools," the district's lawyers wrote in the response.

Also, citing Arkansas and U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the response states that parents' rights haven't been violated because they are not absolute and schools are allowed to enforce rules that protect the welfare of students.

The response also says that the parents did not prove that the district's mask mandate caused "irreparable harm," as their suit wasn't filed until November, when the first semester of the 2021/2022 school year was nearly over.


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