Two-thirds of Benton and Washington county residents prefer letting local school boards decide whether to impose mask mandates to respond to local covid conditions, according to a survey commissioned by the Northwest Arkansas Council.
"Do you support changing the law to allow individual school districts to make those decisions based on the circumstances locally?" the survey asked regarding Act 1002 of 2021. That state law bans mandates to wear masks in public. Of the 413 responding, 66.3% supported changing the law. Another 26.8% opposed changing the law while 6.9% were unsure.
An Aug. 6 temporary restraining order prohibits enforcing Act 1002 while its constitutionality is challenged in Pulaski County Circuit Court. At least 30 school districts around the state approved mask mandates within the next five days, including Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Farmington, Prairie Grove and Springdale school districts. Bentonville's School Board was meeting Wednesday night to discuss mask requirements and Rogers' School Board has a special meeting set for today to consider the matter. The University of Arkansas System trustees announced a mask mandate on all campuses Wednesday morning.
"School boards are making decisions right now, and we thought the public should know about these poll results," said Nelson Peacock, president of the council. The council is a group of business and community leaders who tackle regional issues. It commissioned the poll to help inform its efforts to promote local health and decided to release the finding after seeing the results, he said. The polling took place Aug. 4 and 5.
"There's no agenda here," Peacock said. "We thought it was information local people needed to know, a piece of the puzzle."
Chism Strategies, the Jackson, Miss.-based consulting firm that did the poll, took extra measures to offset any pro-vaccine, pro-mask mandate bias, according to executive Brannon Miller. He said the firm took extra care to ensure people who were not vaccinated were well represented in the polling sample. "So this poll is less rosy on vaccines than others we've seen," he said. The poll has a 4.82% margin of error, and almost all the poll's findings are well outside that, he said. The poll was taken by live interviews by telephone, he said.
"Well that's not what my constituents are telling me at all," said Rep. Robin Lundstrum, R-Elm Springs. Lundstrum voted for Act 1002, which passed the House April 20 in a 69-to-20 vote with 11 not voting. She has received more comments from constituents on mask mandates than any other issue, she said, and those comments heavily oppose to any such mandates.
"They made it crystal clear what they thought," Lundstrum said.
The governor called a special session Aug. 4 to change Act 1002 to allow schools to impose masking if they choose, but no such measure passed.
Sen. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, said lawmakers tend to hear from constituents who are most passionate about the issue under debate. Leding opposed Act 1002 and the constituents contacting him favored an exemption for local school districts. "I'm not surprised," he said of the poll results. "We do tend to hear from the people at the extremes."
"The Legislature is a partisan body," Leding said, and masking has become a partisan issue.
Most Northwest Arkansans polled got vaccinations, they said: 62%, with another 7.3% saying they plan to. Among those unvaccinated, 37.3% said they want to wait to see how vaccine affects others. Another 32% of the unvaccinated respondents said they don't believe available vaccines are safe or effective and 28% gave other reasons not specified in the poll results.
"There's a hard 30% of people who don't want vaccine or mask mandates of any kind," Peacock said. Miller agreed, saying no one has found an effective argument to change the minds of that portion of the population in Northwest Arkansas or anywhere else.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson's decision July 29 to declare a health emergency received a wide margin of support in the poll with 64.9% approving. Only 25.4% did not approve with 9.6% unsure.
A large majority of those polled said government at some level should be able to declare a mandate. The largest portion of those -- 29.1% of those polled -- believe mandate power should reside with local elected officials. Another 14.3% supported the governor having that power. Another 11.6% said the federal government can decide and 8.2% said the state Legislature should have the power. In all, 63.2% said some level of government should get to decide whether to impose a mask mandate. "No one should be allowed to mandate mask wearing" received 31% support, and another 5.8% said they were unsure.
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Other poll findings:
To your knowledge, have you or someone in your household ever had covid or tested positive for covid?
• 23.1% Yes
• 76.5% No
• 0.4% Refused
Do you wear a mask while indoors in crowded places like grocery stories, movie theaters, and restaurants?
• 35.9% All or most all the time
• 28.2% Sometimes but not always
• 35.6% Rarely or never
• 0.3% Refused
Should private businesses, like airlines, restaurants, and concert venues, be allowed to require customers show proof they have been vaccinated?
• 51.8% Yes
• 45.9% No
• 2.3% Unsure
Source: Northwest Arkansas Council/Chism Strategies