Mulvane school board votes to keep mask mandate; rejects plea from parents, Ranzau
Mulvane has become the latest Wichita-area school district to reject a challenge to its mask mandate and to criticize the Senate bill that forced the school board to hold three days of hearings on a complaint from a parent.
The board on Monday night voted 4-1 with two abstentions to reject a grievance filed under Senate Bill 40, a new state law that requires school boards to use the least restrictive means possible to control the spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
The law also mandates that school boards hold an official hearing within 72 hours when any parent files a complaint about school rules for COVID control.
Before Monday’s vote, Mulvane held two days of hearings last week on a complaint filed by parent Lara Payton and co-signed by about 40 others.
In rejecting the complaint, school board president Jeff Ellis called SB 40 “Extremely political and not fact-based.”
“Senate Bill 40 has continued to divide the community, divide teachers, divide students, divide board members,” he said.
He criticized the Kansas Legislature for changing the rules so late in the school year. If it had taken effect mid-summer, the district could have had a more orderly conversation about how to proceed next year, he said.
Board member Chris Heersche also spoke in favor of keeping the mask requirement.
He said without masks, the schools would be at risk of having to send students home to quarantine if they come in contact with a COVID-infected classmate.
“I would just struggle with that point of it, putting kids in high-risk close contact situations like we did a couple weeks ago and had 30 kids out in one swoop,” he said.
“We’ve got 26 days of school left” and if the board lifts the mask mandate, he said: “I feel like we’re putting kids in jeopardy of missing a third of their last 26 days. I don’t know that it’s worth the risk to do that.
The only vote to drop the mandate came from his cousin, Fred Heersche, who also serves on the board.
“What are we going to do next fall?” he said. “Are we going to mask again? I don’t think so. This is ridiculous. I think we’ve gone far enough.”
About a dozen parents and students who signed on to the complaint were present in the audience. Most went unmasked in defiance of the district rules.
“They’re not actually protecting the kids from anything as far as I’m concerned,” said parent Lacy Collins. “To actually protect yourself from the small particles of COVID you’d have to wear a HazMat suit or something. I just don’t feel like there’s any purpose.”
Her 16-year-old daughter, Carly, said masks give her headaches and interfere with her learning.
“I can’t breathe,” said Carly, a sophomore. “If I sit in the back of the classroom, my glasses fog up and I can’t wear (a mask) right and the teachers get on me about it.”
It was the third loss in a row for former Sedgwick County commissioner Richard Ranzau, who has emerged in recent weeks as a leading opponent of masks in schools countywide.
He’s been shot down twice in Valley Center where he brought a complaint as a parent himself and then represented another parent who filed her own complaint but couldn’t attend her hearing.
Ranzau doesn’t have children in the Mulvane district and can’t formally challenge its mask mandate. But the Mulvane complainants invited him to testify for them as an expert witness.
In testimony last week, Ranzau argued that the “mental and emotional trauma (from mask mandates) is very real and important to recognize.”
He also criticized the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and local health authorities for continuing to recommend masks, with the potential penalty of quarantines looming in the background.
“It’s a clear attempt to force schools to continue the mask mandate,” he said. “Don’t let KDHE and the Sedgwick County Health Department bully you.”
State Rep. Cheryl Helmer, R-Mulvane, attended Monday’s meeting. During a break, she blamed Gov. Laura Kelly for “terrifying” students and parents with executive orders throughout the pandemic.
“I wish the state school board would stand alone and look at the science of it, instead of being swayed by the governor,” she said.
She said the effects of the pandemic have been sweeping.
“We have all become weak because of this awful thing,” she said. “The devil has slipped in and done this. And may God bless us all and let us help these children.”
This story was originally published April 20, 2021 at 9:29 AM.
