State school mask bans tangled with budget plans and controversy

AP: Arizona High Court allows upholding of school mask ban

The Arizona Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to immediately reinstate a series of new laws that include measures that prevent schools from requiring masks and remove the power of local governments to impose COVID-19 restrictions. The High Court rejected the request of the Attorney General of the Republic, Mark Brnovich, to allow the entry into force of the provisions of three state budget bills and one entire budget bill. Instead, the court set a briefing schedule for it to consider Brnovich’s request to bypass the Court of Appeal and hear the case directly. (Christie, 9/29)

Detroit Free Press: Whitmer: Budget coins canceling local mask orders unconstitutional

Michigan lawmakers cannot use the state budget to threaten funding for local health departments that institute local school mask rules, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a letter to lawmakers on Wednesday. The governor considers this pandemic provision in the nearly $ 70 billion budget unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable. “Lawmakers cannot roll out the public health code into a budget bill or inappropriate funds because they challenge the actions of local health departments,” Whitmer wrote in the letter. (Boucher, 9/29)

WLRN 91.3 FM: Federal government covers Broward school board salaries that state withheld due to mask policy

The US Department of Education announced Tuesday that it is awarding more than $ 420,000 to the Broward County School Board to cover state financial penalties on the salaries of school board members. The grant is intended to pay the salaries of eight Broward board members who voted for a student mask term that allows exceptions only for medical reasons during the COVID-19 pandemic. (9/29)

Salt Lake Tribune: Here’s where the masks have gone that Utah officials promised schools in Salt Lake City County

To help keep Utah’s children “as safe as possible” from COVID-19, Governor Spencer Cox in August pledged to provide more than a million masks to students in Kindergarten to Grade 12, at the Both surgical style masks and higher quality KN95 masks in small and large sizes. As of Tuesday, 2.2 million masks had been shipped to schools, according to Tom Hudachko, spokesman for the Utah Department of Health. Of these, 310,000 were pediatric-sized fabric masks, 700,000 were pediatric-sized three-layer surgical masks and the rest were KN95s, he said. But low demand for the masks means some Salt Lake County school districts have left them in storage. “I would say that every day, on average, throughout the building, about a quarter of my children wear masks,” John Paul Sorensen, director of Neil Armstrong Academy in West Valley City, said Tuesday. (Jacobs, 9/29

In updates on quarantines and vaccines –

AP: Louisiana school chief removes COVID quarantine suggestion

Going against health advice, the Louisiana Department of Education announced on Wednesday that it no longer recommends that public school systems quarantine asymptomatic students who have come in close contact with a person who tests positive. for COVID-19. Louisiana’s 69 local school districts already had the opportunity to determine whether they wanted to send students home for days due to exposure to the coronavirus disease. But most districts had followed the state’s education department’s recommendation that these students should be quarantined, even if they did not show symptoms of COVID-19. (Deslatte, 9/29)

The Charlotte Observer: Union County’s New COVID Quarantine Agreement with Schools

After threats of legal action, the Union County Public School District has agreed to work with the county health department to ensure that COVID-19 contact tracing steps and quarantine requirements are followed. The Union County Public Health Department and Union County Public Schools agreed on Wednesday on a process to identify and exclude students and staff identified as a positive case or close contact of a person who tested positive for COVID-19. (Costa, 9/29)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Illinois teachers sue districts over statewide immunization warrant

Ten teachers in the eastern metropolitan area who refuse to comply with statewide vaccine and mask mandates are suing their school districts over the policies. The lawsuit against Triad, in Troy, and the Edwardsville school districts and their superintendents indicates that the warrants were issued illegally. The Madison County Circuit Court lawsuit calls for teachers to be allowed to continue working in their schools. School districts “do not have the delegated authority to mandate vaccination or testing,” said lawyer Thomas DeVore of Greenville. “They could have defended their educators… but they don’t want to face the governor. “(Bernhard, 9/29)

AP: University of Colorado faces COVID religious exemption lawsuit

A pediatrician and a medical student at the University of Colorado medical campus at Anschutz are contesting denials of their requests for religious exemptions from the school’s COVID vaccination mandate, arguing in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that administrators are ruling ” truth ”of personal religious beliefs in violation of the First Amendment. The U.S. District Court lawsuit filed by the Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based conservative nonprofit, is the latest clash over a growing number of private and public sector vaccine mandates across national government to stem the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 600,000 people in the United States (Nieberg, 9/30)

In other school news –

The Washington Post: School nutrition programs face new crisis as supply chain disruptions and labor shortages limit food deliveries

Square pizza and chicken fillets are suddenly swapped for pieces of meatloaf and zucchini. American school children and lunch ladies make faces. And now the federal government is stepping in to help. Kansas school districts cannot get whole wheat flour, ranch dressing, or Crispitos taco rolls at this time. In Dallas, they can’t get their hands on cutlery, plates, and napkins. In New York City, school districts are unable to find chicken, condiments or carrots without antibiotics. (Reiley, 9/29)