Virginia Enacts Law Barring School Mask Mandates - The New York Times
After weeks of back-and-forth, Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, a Republican, signed into law on Wednesday a bill that will effectively bar mask mandates in schools, by giving parents the right to exempt their children from mask-wearing without stating a reason.
“Today, we are re-establishing and restoring our power back to parents,” Mr. Youngkin said as he signed the bill into law. “We are also re-establishing our expectations that we will get back to normal, and this is the path.”
The bill will also take away school districts’ freedom to close schools and switch to remote instruction, except in limited circumstances. It requires that every district provide in-person instruction for “the minimum number of required annual instruction hours” in a standard school year, or else face financial penalties.
The state legislature accepted amendments added by Mr. Youngkin that make the law effective on March 1, giving school districts that have tried to maintain mask mandates some time to adjust. They also give the governor the power to waive the bill’s provisions in an emergency.
Virginia joins other states that have recently eased mask mandates for schools or for businesses, as daily reports of new coronavirus cases slow significantly following the Omicron surge. Some, like Nevada, have dropped statewide mandates while allowing local school districts to enforce their own mandates, but the Virginia bill precludes local school officials from doing so.
The bill codifies in law a step that Mr. Youngkin took with an executive order on his first day in office in January, making mask-wearing optional in schools. Several school districts have fought his order in court, arguing that it exceeded his authority.
The Virginia Educators Association, which represents more than 40,000 teachers and other school employees, criticized the bill, saying that it “would remove local decision-making power from local school divisions and place it into the hands of the state.”
President Biden said last weekend that while he understood public frustration with pandemic restrictions, including school mask mandates, easing them now was “probably premature,” though it remained a “tough call.”
“Every day that goes by, children are more protected,” Mr. Biden said, later adding that “the more protection they have, probably you’re going to see less and less requirement to have the masks.”
Republican lawmakers in Virginia introduced the bill ending mask mandates in late January, and passed it on straight party-line votes in the legislature’s two houses.
The daily average number of new coronavirus cases in Virginia has fallen by more than 80 percent from the peak of the Omicron surge in mid-January, though it remains higher than at nearly any previous point in the pandemic, other than the surge a year ago, according to a New York Times database. Hospitalizations, including those in intensive care units, are also declining, but remain high, averaging nearly 2,000 patients.
source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/16/us/virginia-school-mask-mandates.html
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