Staff back board deciding on masks

Fort Smith school workers polled; panel then votes to require face coverings

FORT SMITH — School staff who responded to a poll are mostly in favor of the School Board deciding if they’re required to wear masks to mitigate the spread of covid-19 — a revelation that preceded the board’s final ratification of a district-wide mask mandate.

The School Board on Thursday voted 6-1 in favor of certifying an emergency regulation for staff to wear masks at the recommendation of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Arkansas Department of Health. The decision officially amends the staff ’s policy they signed for the 2021-2022 school year, according to Personnel Policy Committee chairman Ryan Gray.

The vote was preceded by a School District Personnel Policy Committee presentation that showed 60.87% of certified staff and 56.91% of classified staff who responded to the anonymous 24-hour vote supported the board’s role of deciding whether to make staff wear face masks in response to public health concerns. About 83% of certified staff and 59% of classified staff in the district participated in the vote, according to Chris Davis, assistant superintendent of human resources.

“The policy deals with the staff’s willingness to be bound by the existing and future votes of the board,” said attorney Marshall Ney, legal counsel for the School District.

The board on Monday voted 5-2 to make students, staff and visitors in the School District wear masks in indoor school facilities except for special circumstances. Superintendent Terry Morawski can make exceptions to the requirement at his discretion and based on information from the CDC and Department of Health, according to the resolution.

Thursday’s decision was voted on by the board because policies enacted in the 2021 school year don’t take effect until the staff ’s new contracts are signed for the coming school year, Gray said.

“That vote is basically the staff saying, ‘ We agree for you to amend our contracts, what we’ve already signed, and add this new policy,’” said Gray, adding the committee wanted teachers to have a say in the matter.

The board voted after Zone I board member Troy Eckelhoff asked if the staff would have to vote for it again since district officials are reassessing covid-19 policies every 60 days. Ney told Eckelhoff the teachers won’t have to vote again because they’re trusting mask enforcement to the discretion of the School Board.

Eckelhoff was the lone vote against the board determining whether to mandate masks for staff. He was one of two votes against the mask mandate Monday.

Like other school districts in Arkansas, Fort Smith was able to enact a mask mandate because of Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox’s Aug. 6 ruling that the state’s ban on mask mandates from governments and school boards was illegal. Fox’s ruling followed a special legislative session called by Gov. Asa Hutchinson to make provisions to the state’s mask ban in light of the coming school year. The ban remained intact throughout the session.

Hutchinson in recent weeks has said he regrets signing Act 1002, which articulates and enforces the ban. Hutchinson said he signed it in light of falling covid-19 cases, before the delta variant of the virus got a foothold in the state.

Ney advised the board they won’t likely see the state legislative landscape change on masks in the next 60 days because Hutchinson hadn’t changed his position on Thursday. He also said state Attorney General Leslie Rutledge hadn’t filed an appeal of Fox’s ruling.