Board decides Little Rock School District to keep mask rules

LITTLE ROCK — Face coverings will continue to be required on Little Rock School District campuses at least through Jan. 27 as a way to curb the spread of covid-19, the system’s School Board voted Thursday.

The board voted 8-1 for continuing the mask-wearing mandate for students and employees during a lengthy meeting in which it also voted 9-0 in support of pay raises for all district employees retroactive to July 1.

The employee raises will move the beginning teacher salary from $ 36,000 to $43,000 this year, and salaries will be adjusted accordingly for longer-tenured teachers and teachers who acquire college credit hours above a bachelor’s degree. Non-teaching employees will receive raises of about 3%.

Superintendent Mike Poore, Director of Health Services Jacqueline McEuen and Director of Safety and Security Ron Self presented the mask mandate recommendation and other options to the board.

The board’s vote came after multiple comments from members of the public on both sides of the issue, as well as a spirited board discussion about the low and declining numbers of active covid cases in the district and community.

Board member Greg Adams made the motion to continue the mandate until the board takes up the matter again at its Jan. 27 meeting.

District leaders had recommended that the board reconsider the mask mandate at its Jan. 13 agenda meeting, but Adams said he wanted to have more data about the number of cases that may or may not develop during the winter holidays.

Poore and his staff had also offered as an option, but did not recommend, a plan in which masks could become optional in schools where 70% or more of individuals are fully vaccinated as determined by a one-time data report for each school from the Arkansas Department of Health and the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement.

A third option presented by the district leaders was to strongly encourage mask-wearing based on Arkansas Center for Health Improvement reports of case numbers in the different school district communities. The agency posts a color-coded map that indicates the concentration of active cases per 10,000 individuals. Little Rock is coded as having the lowest level of cases per 10,000.

A “NO” VOTE

Board member Jeff Wood cast the only “no” vote, after citing his research into what other large school districts are doing and finding that covid-19 case numbers seem to go up and down regardless of whether face coverings are required in the systems.

Wood said he has voted for requiring masks four times in the past and is not anti-mask, but he noted that the district has had only nine or 10 active cases this week. He questioned what number would trigger district leaders to recommend that the masks be optional.

“What number do we have to reach to get to return to a traditional school experience,” he asked, saying that there are nine or 10 cases out of nearly 22,000 students.

Self told the board that the Little Rock district had only 43 students quarantined and out of school as a result of the mask requirement.

“I’m jumping up and down,” Self said. “Our goal is to keep kids in school. Students who are exposed to covid but were properly wearing their face coverings do not have to quarantine and remain in school.”

Board member Evelyn Callaway told her board colleagues that she favored the mandate because she wants students and staffers to live and that she has seen too much death in the past year.

Board member Leigh Ann Wilson said the mask is the only option now for students under age 11 who are ineligible for covid-19 vaccinations.

Adams told Wood that he respected his stand on the mask issue but that the low numbers of cases have not been in place long enough to give him confidence that the cases won’t surge, just as they did over the summer with the introduction of the delta variant of the virus.

Poore said the Arkansas Department of Health and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue to recommend mandatory face coverings for school students and employees.

Board member Ali Noland said during a break in the meeting that “it just doesn’t make sense for our district to abandon successful covid-19 precautions when our youngest students are so close to finally being eligible for the vaccine and the CDC and Arkansas Department of Health still recommend universal masking in schools.”

SALARIES ISSUE

The newly approved salary increases for employees represent “a proud moment” for the school district, Poore told the board.

Adams called the vote one of “joy.”

Board member Ali Noland, who made the motion to approve the raises, expressed gratitude to the employees. She said the raises will benefit students by enabling the district to retain and attract good teachers and other employees.

The board approved the raises for this year, but this year’s pay raises are part of a three-year plan to raise beginning teacher salaries to $45,000 in the 2022-23 school year and $48,000 in 2023-24.

By the third year of the pay plan, most teachers in the district would see their pay increased by about $10,000.

The raises for non-teaching employees is being paired with the establishment of a new unified pay schedule.

The non- teaching employees will be placed on that schedule based on each employee’s job classification, be it custodian, nurse or principal, at the step that is closest to the employee’s newly increased pay rate — with no one getting a cut in that pay.

The raises for this year will cost as much as $11 million.