Parents, Education Advocates Disappointed By Ducey's Latest Efforts Against Arizona School Mask Mandates
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Navajo mother Ginger Torres knows firsthand just how devastating COVID-19 can be after family members such as her great aunt and great uncle, who are considered her grandparents in Navajo culture, contracted the virus.
"They are older and they both had COVID and the effects that it’s had on their bodies has been severe and they're both basically hospital-bound at this point," she said.
Others have recovered or died.
Seeing how dangerous COVID-19 can be made Torres' two children, who go to an elementary school in the Madison School District, worry about in-person classes.
"They were afraid to go to school," she said. "My children wore two masks to school at their own will.”
The Madison district is now one of the about two dozen that are requiring masks. This defies Gov. Doug Ducey and the Republican-controlled state Legislature, which passed a law this session banning mask mandates in K-12 public schools. The district sent a letter 10 days ago reaffirming the policy after a similar one at the Phoenix Union High School District survived a court challenge. The letter made Torres' daughter feel more calm.
“She had two teachers that were not wearing masks in her classrooms, and so that made her very anxious and upset," Torres said. "This week I know she’s been alleviated of some of that stress because her teachers are now wearing masks.”
→ List: Arizona School Districts Requiring Masks For 2021-2022 School Year
But last week, Ducey announced new efforts to incentivize schools to comply with the law before it even takes effect. One way he’s doing this is by offering charters and districts that received less than $1,800 per student from three COVID-19 relief packages additional funds to cover that gap as part of his new Education Plus Up grant program.
The catch: they can’t impose mask mandates and must remain in person.
It's Republican state leaders latest efforts in their crusade against K-12 public schools with COVID-19 mitigation strategies including mask requirements.
“We are going to spend the money in schools that are serious about education and getting kids caught up," Ducey told reporters at a press conference last Thursday.
The move left parents like Dr. Joseph Wong and Torres — who believe masks are needed at schools right now — confused.
“Personally I think he’s an idiot," Wong said.
“I feel that Gov. Ducey should be incentivizing schools to protect our children and not the opposite," Torres said.
The Madison district could get a grant of about $100,000 if it applies and rescinds its mask policy by the end of the week of Aug. 27.
The Chandler Unified School District, where Wong’s young children attend school, has more to gain — a grant of up to $11 million. During a Thursday board meeting, the district's Chief Financial Officer Lana Berry said the district could also get an additional $40 million from a second grant program that has yet to be announced, but will likely include the same condition as the Education Plus Up program.
During the meeting, the board ultimately decided following public health guidance and mandating masks for a temporary period before the law goes in effect in late September wasn’t worth the risk. The decision left Wong disappointed.
“It’s obvious that masking is the right thing, and it leaves a sour taste when you consider that this decision to go against a mask mandate was financially motivated in terms of putting a price tag on our children’s health and our children’s lives, and the approximate price for a child, approximately $1,800 per student," he said during an interview after the Thursday meeting.
Ducey is also offering up to $7,000 to certain students at schools with what he considers to be overbearing and excessive COVID-19 mitigation policies such as masking, isolation and quarantine, as part of his new COVID-19 Educational Recovery Benefit program, even though those are strategies that state and county health departments recommend.
“Our COVID-19 Educational Recovery Benefit will empower parents to exercise their choice when it comes to their child’s education and COVID-19 mitigation strategies," the governor said in a statement. "It will also give families in need the opportunity to access educational resources like tutoring, child care, transportation and other needs."
Beth Lewis, the executive director of Save Our Schools Arizona, a grassroot advocacy group that opposes expansions to the state’s voucher program, said she was not surprised by this announcement.
“It's pretty obvious that Gov. Ducey's attempt to expand vouchers with federal COVID relief dollars, is a brazen open attempt to do what he's always wanted to do, right," Lewis said. "He's had a long standing agenda to privatize public education, to take public dollars and put them in private schools.”
But school choice advocate and mother Kayla Svedin applauds this effort that she said will support children who have fallen behind academically due to loss of in-person instructional time during COVID.
“It’s about time that they were getting some help. because too many people, too many students are just completely being disregarded through this pandemic," Svedin said.
Ducey is funding both of these efforts using federal COVID-19 relief dollars, but whether he could use the money this way remains to be seen. The U.S. Department of the Treasury has said the primary purpose of those funds is to stop the spread of COVID-19. Ducey told reporters at his Thursday press conference he's confident that he's "on solid ground" based on legal advice he's received.
The Treasury department said it’s monitoring all proposed expenditures and expects any state or local government that misuses the funds to repay them.
