The Arizona Education Association and a coalition of education organizations and supporters filed a lawsuit against the state over the constitutionality of the ban on K-12 mask mandates on Thursday.
The Arizona Education Association, the largest professional association for public school employees in Arizona, argues the provisions included in the K-12 budget bill, prohibiting school districts from requiring masks and the COVID-19 vaccine for students and staff are unconstitutional, as they are unrelated to the budget.
According to the lawsuit filed by AEA, the law violates the single subject and title requirements for legislation and equal protection grounds as set forth in the Arizona Constitution,
“Governor Ducey and the GOP legislative leadership are putting our children in harm’s way and our communities at risk,” says AEA President Joe Thomas. “Their actions are reckless and abusive. By tying the hands of our local school board leaders, lawmakers are preventing them from making decisions to keep our students safe.”
Several school districts across Arizona, including Tucson Unified School District, opted to require masks in schools in opposition to the Governor. As of Tuesday, TUSD Board member Adelita Grijalva said the district had yet to receive a letter from the Governor’s office, but expected it to arrive after the legislation technically comes into effect on Sept. 29, 90 days after the session adjourns.
“We know the majority of parents and our educators support our school leaders doing everything they can to keep our students and staff safe and healthy,” says Thomas. “We’re seeing more and more school districts taking steps to protect their students and communities. But they shouldn’t have to break the law to implement common sense protections for our students. We urge lawmakers to listen to their constituents and make the right decision to ensure our classrooms and campuses are safe so we can keep our students learning in our classrooms.”
Ducey spokesman C.J. Karamargin said, “We’re confident the legislation we signed is completely constitutional.”
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2021.
Message to Joe Thomas,
There have been numerous studies of the typical masks worn by students and the general population. Any protection they provide is iffy, at best.
Just recently, the CDC finally admitted that aerosol propagation of Covid-19 is the major source of infection. What does this mean for masks? Prior to this admission, the foundational theory was that the Covid-19 virus was encased in moisture from mucous, etc and was 100 microns or larger. Thus it immediately fell to the ground upon being coughed out.
By comparison, aerosol propagation means that the virus travels by itself, one-tenth of a millionth of an inch in size and can stay in the air for hours.
At that size, the virus sails right through the masks that students are wearing.
I volunteer in classes, wearing a real mask, an N95 mask. I and one student were the only people wearing a mask in a classroom where wearing masks was voluntary. And, he was wearing his down below his nose- really worthless.
People are done with it. They recognize the risk to students is very low. From 2014 to 2019, about 150 students per year died from the Flu and pneumonia. Was there a push to have them all wear masks? In the last 12 months, only 5 students died with Covid and all of them had preexisting conditions that put them much more at risk.
Instead of beating the drum to have students wear worthless masks, you should be understanding the science of this situation and pushing hard for every school to have MERV13 level filtration and disinfectant systems installed in their air conditioning ducts.
Cutting edge hospitals have ionizations systems in their air conditioning system ducts. These ionization systems destroy the Covid-19 virus.
If we accomplish this, we will actually end up saving more lives than Covid-19 has taken because we will reduce Flu and pneumonia deaths also.