Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
The Logan Board of Education was scheduled to vote on a resolution opposing the state’s mask mandate, but divided board members officially removed it from the agenda early in last week’s meeting before they could take action on it.
The board’s Aug. 9 agenda contained an action item listed as “Consider approval of Resolution on Mask Mandate.” Shortly after the meeting began, board member Kene Terry made a motion to strike it from the agenda.
Terry, while voicing misgivings about the New Mexico Public Education Department, expressed reservations with the proposed resolution that superintendent Dennis Roch said was similar to one drafted and approved by the Mountainair school board.
Terry noted children under age 12 are not eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine — including an estimated 125 students in Logan — and said he might be more receptive in supporting the resolution once such a vaccine is available to children by fall or winter.
He said he felt the measure — which he feared would be “a political football” — would essentially ostracize parents and students who would voluntarily wear masks to protect themselves and their families from the virus.
“Are we taking away their chance to come to school because if we say, ‘We’re not going to wear masks’?” he said. “If I don’t feel comfortable with my kids being around unvaccinated kids, without even the chance for a vaccine, we’re basically telling our parents, ‘You need to go online.’”
Board member Tom Humble also expressed reservations about the resolution.
“Is there something that we’re doing here that might cause some families to not want to be here or be concerned about being here?” he said.
Roch pointed out that approving the resolution simply was a nonbinding board opinion that would be passed along to the PED, but the district still would comply with the mandate. He said other school districts around the state commonly approve other resolutions at meetings.
School board President Scott Osborn, while personally opposing the mask mandate, said he wasn’t willing to openly disregard it, citing the recent suspension of the Floyd school district for voting to do so.
“I don’t want to put our board in jeopardy with this,” he said. “I would fight (the governor) tooth and nail to the end of the state. But I don’t want to see Santa Fe come here and take over the school like they did with Floyd.”
Several minutes passed during the discussion before Osborn seconded Terry’s motion. Near the end of the nearly 20-minute discussion, the board voted 3-2 to strike the resolution from the agenda. Terry, Humble and Osborn voted for the motion; Kyle Perez and Laurie Strebeck voted against it.
The Quay County Sun obtained a copy of Mountainair’s mask-mandate resolution, from which Logan’s was based, from superintendent Dawn Apodaca.
It stated “covering of the mouths of students and educators can have a detrimental effect on (especially younger) students abilities to progress and develop.” It asserted students with speech impediments were negatively affected by the masks and that “the risk to reward ratio of wearing face coverings vs. not wearing face coverings is now widely understood.”
“We highly value the right of parents to make decisions that are best for their students and family,” the resolution states. “We also highly value the right of staff to make decisions that are best for themselves and their families,” and “the education of students must not be further compromised.”
The resolution stated it would support legislation that would rescind mask mandates and “would allow individuals to choose for themselves whether they wear a mask or not regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status.” It demanded the governor rescind or repeal any executive order requiring masks.
Later in the meeting, Principal Crystal Burns said she anticipates fewer COVID-related shutdowns at schools because of PED’s less-stringent guidelines this fall.
Roch said the interruption of in-person learning during the previous school year had the biggest negative effect on children’s education.
“We’re delighted that we’re not going to see the same quarantine footprint we saw last year,” he said. “I think that’s going to make a huge difference.”
In other business:
• Roch detailed how the district planned to spend about $192,000 of federal American Rescue Plan funds. It would be used to update climate-control systems, offer summer-school opportunities and offer mental-health counseling. Another $108,000 of those funds would arrive later.
• The board approved a state-mandated regulation where board members would be reimbursed for mileage or other expenses. Roch detailed ways that board members simply could give those paychecks back to the district.
• The board approved handbook changes that list the mask mandate as a temporary part of the district’s dress code. Another change also addresses vaping as part of rules regarding tobacco use.
• Roch said preliminary numbers show 75 students in the high school, 60 in middle school and 79 in the elementary school, plus 55 students taking courses online. He said in-person high school instruction has capacity issues due to social distancing, and the district has “turned people away” who’ve wanted to enroll in such settings.