Little Rock School District leaders consider lawsuit challenging ban on mask mandates

“You can argue all day long about whether this state control thing should have happened or not, but the foundational principles of what we are trying to do for school improvement is just the right work,” Little Rock School superintendent Mike Poore told the state Board of Education on Thursday. He said later that being under state control had been “super helpful.”
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)
“You can argue all day long about whether this state control thing should have happened or not, but the foundational principles of what we are trying to do for school improvement is just the right work,” Little Rock School superintendent Mike Poore told the state Board of Education on Thursday. He said later that being under state control had been “super helpful.” (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)

Little Rock School District leaders are considering a lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of a state law that prohibits school districts from mandating the wearing of face masks on campus.

Mike Poore, superintendent of the 21,000-student capital city district, said Friday morning that he will ask the School Board to vote on whether to pursue the lawsuit at a special board meeting Wednesday.

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The lawsuit draft — which alleges four separate violations of the U.S. Constitution — will be publicly released by the school system later this afternoon so it can be reviewed and discussed by board members and the public prior to the Wednesday meeting.

Poore acknowledged that Gov. Asa Hutchinson is seeking to convene the General Assembly with the intent of modifying Act 1002 to give school districts the flexibility to require students and staff to wear face masks as a defense against the virus that is surging in the state.

“But I’m not confident that will occur,” Poore said in a video message about the potential for legislative action.

“We need every single tool” including mask wearing to fight the virus, he said.

He also noted that an estimated 70% of district employees and only about 10% of students eligible for the covid vaccinations have received the vaccinations. Children 12 and over are eligible for the Pfizer shots.

The announcement of a possible lawsuit comes in the same week that the district’s School Board passed a resolution calling on Hutchinson and legislative leaders to “immediately” convene a special session of the General Assembly “to suspend, amend, or repeal Act 1002 and allow public school districts in Arkansas the flexibility to implement mask requirements as each locally elected school board deems necessary.”

The resolution noted that Arkansas is experiencing a public health emergency and is the “epicenter of the highly contagious new Delta variant” of the virus that is causing illness among a growing number of children, including children under 12 who are as yet ineligible for covid vaccinations.

“The Little Rock School Board believes that local communities should be empowered to implement common-sense public-health precautions, including requiring masks, in order to keep their students and employees safe,” the resolution stated.

“[B]ut for Act 1002, the Little Rock School Board would immediately institute a mask mandate for employees and students in all K-12 schools within the district,” it also stated.

In addition to the resolution, the Little Rock district has instituted a xy$300 incentive to all employees who are fully vaccinated by Oct. 1 and it has hosted and will continue to host vaccination clinics for employees, students and community members.

Act 1002 doesn’t apply to private organizations, including private schools — some of which have already announced mask-wearing requirements for their students for the coming school year.

Pupils and staff in Arkansas’ nearly two dozen Catholic elementary schools will be required to wear masks, Theresa Hall, superintendent for the Diocese of Little Rock schools said in a statement reported in the Arkansas Catholic newspaper.

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