In rare 4-3 split, Springfield school board rejects imposing temporary mask mandate

Springfield school administrators asked for a temporary mask mandate but a majority of the school board said no.

The board voted 4-3 Friday to reject a proposed public health order to temporarily reinstate a mask mandate for students, employees and visitors through Feb. 18.

Board president Alina Lehnert, board vice president Denise Fredrick, and members Scott Crise and Maryam Mohammadkhani opposed the measure.

The order was supported by Danielle Kincaid, Charles Taylor, and Shurita Thomas-Tate.

Crise, who noted the district had been threatened with a lawsuit by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, said the city is no longer requiring masking and neither are many businesses or churches.

He argued masking was not good for students' overall well-being and "makes them far more susceptible to getting sick due to a weakened immune system."

"Social challenges are there, which come about from not being able to read nonverbal cues from friends or teachers or classmates, making it more difficult to learn in the classroom and why they're there," Crise said. "Mental health challenges such as stress, anxiety, fear, loneliness have increased due to COVID and partially due to the mask."

Crise said by rejecting a mandate "we're not taking away the masks."

Superintendent Grenita Lathan said in-person learning will resume Monday. Currently, the district is requiring employees and visitors — but not students — to mask through Feb. 4.

Thomas-Tate said even though the board was split, members had the same motivation.

"None of us, not one of us, wants to harm a child or this district," she said. "We want the best for everyone."

She said her motivation for supporting the move was to protect students, employees and their families.

"It's the one thing we can do to help increase the likelihood that we continue to have enough teachers in the classroom, in person or virtually, to teach our students," she said. "It also does impact our greater community."

No public comment was allowed at the meeting but the board has received dozens of messages in recent weeks from parents regarding the mandate.

Taylor said more than 100 messages have come in. "All of them I think needed to be heard, or read in this instance."

Parents at the meeting held up signs including "Freedom, not fear."

CoxHealth, Mercy Springfield, and the Greene County Medical Society sent letters this week in support of a temporary return to masking.

Kincaid said: "It's important that we listen to our local medical community and our local medical experts."

She said keeping students and employees safe is the top priority and another is to "be back in school so we don't have another week like this."

A spike in COVID-19 cases and dramatic absentee rate — 20 percent of the 3,500 staff and 19 percent of the 24,100 students — prompted the district to close Jan. 19-24.

Classes resumed Jan. 25 but they were virtual, not in person.

The district logged 1,642 cases of COVID-19 from Jan. 4-18 including 1,237 students and 405 employees.

Taylor noted "most of us in higher ed" have been masked. Masking is required, at least in classrooms, at Missouri State University, Ozarks Technical Community College and Drury University.

"The district is not an island in and of itself," Taylor said. "And the choices we make around this board table have significant consequences for the community at large."

Springfield, like many area districts, also struggled to find enough substitutes. According to the district, the number of teaching absences that went unfilled jumped from 24 on Jan. 10 to 87 on Jan. 14.

The district required masking through the 2020-21 year and during the fall 2021 semester but the mandate was suspended in late December after Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed a cease-and-desist letter.

Schmitt, who is running for U.S. Senate, threatened legal action if masking continued. He recently filed more than 40 lawsuits against districts, mostly in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas, that require masking.

Last week, he reiterated his plan to sue any district that fails to drop its mask mandate or quarantine order, stating "COVID-19 poses very little risk to children."

"It’s far past time that the power to make health decisions concerning children be pried from the hands of bureaucrats and put back into the hands of parents and families, and I will take school district after school district to court to achieve that goal," he said.

In Springfield, masking was optional for all when classes resumed in early January. But, citing an uptick in cases, the district returned to required masking for employees and for visitors.

More: Three SPS board members push to reinstate student mask mandate

It is worth noting the district's decision to require masking in mid-2020 and to make them optional in late 2021 was made by the administration, not the board.

The legal arguments over whether cities, districts and other entities have the authority to require masks have in part centered on whether mandates have been issued by appointed administrators or elected bodies.

Mohammadkhani, who joined the board in April 2021 along with Crise and Kincaid, said the board should have discussed masking months ago. She is a retired pathologist.

"We could have avoided so much of the mask fatigue and on, off with them. We could have but we didn't," she said. "So now we sit at this junction, where the word 'temporary' has lost its meaning. Three semesters is not temporary, right?"

She said "everybody else has moved on" from requiring masks. "People who are writing you letters telling you to mask the kids are probably going out to restaurants and eating."

Several board members talked about mask fatigue and difficulty getting students to wear them properly.

Fredrick said parents who reached out to her urged the district to remain mask optional. She said if mandated, teachers and administrators have asked "are you going to come and help us enforce this?"

Mohammadkhani said the district already trusts teachers to provide instruction and keep students safe, why not trust them on masking.

"We can trust our teachers to make decisions regarding the protection of their health," she said. "And if they are not able to, and we have to tell them what to do, then maybe they're in the wrong field. Because we have entrusted them with our babies."

She questioned why the district wanted to mask but not cease extracurricular activities including sports and postpone or cancel large events such as assemblies.

This week, top leaders at CoxHealth and Mercy Springfield sent a letter to the district outlining their support for the temporary masking mandate.

"Our hospitals are at a record high COVID-19 census and infections are spreading faster than at any point in the pandemic," they wrote.

"Fortunately, there are validated, proven and simple strategies to keep schools and kids safely functioning, despite high community COVID-19 prevalence. These measures include vaccines, testing, staying home when sick, hand hygiene, distancing and masking."

The letter signed by Steve Edwards, president and CEO of CoxHealth and Brent Hubbard, president and COO of Mercy Springfield, among others, said experts from both systems supported the step.

"Given the current level of transmission and the known risks COVID-19 poses to children and school staff, it is vital for our schools to take action to reduce transmission until the current wave passes," they wrote. "Schools are an enriching and essential environment for our children. It is up to us as leaders to ensure that it is a safe environment as well."

The Springfield-Greene County Health Department projected the peak of the omicron variant surge was not expected for at least two more weeks. It estimated 1 in every 25 people living in Greene County currently has an infectious case of COVID-19.

Data from community testing sites showed 50 percent of symptomatic individuals were testing positive, which mirrored the testing completed by the district.

The executive council of the Greene County Medical Society issued a statement Jan. 22 in support of masking as a mitigation strategy.

Kayce Morton, past president of the society, said the omicron variant is more contagious than earlier variants.

Morton, pediatric medical director at Jordan Valley Community Health Center, said for masks to work, they must be worn properly.

"On average, they reduce the transmission between 50 and 60 percent. And the basic masks that most of the kids wear and teachers wear — when they wear them correctly and they wear them regularly — it's still decreasing the transmission and decreasing the burden of illness that we see."

Morton, also a pediatric hospitalist at CoxHealth, said there is "no evidence" that masks hurt children, physically or psychologically.

"There is evidence that coronavirus is hurting our children/ We've seen upwards of a million cases of kids since this pandemic started," she said.

She said while COVID-19 is rarely fatal for children, they "do experience long COVID illness" including fatigue, headaches, brain fog, heart inflammation, and abnormalities in their gastrointestinal track.

"The increase in Type I diabetes for these kids has skyrocketed in the last year," Morton said. "The COVID does affect our kids. Yeah, it may not kill them but what are the long lasting complications?"

Claudette Riley is the education reporter for the News-Leader. Email news tips to criley@news-leader.com.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: SPS board rejects temporary mask mandate in schools