Indiana legislature has no plan to ban school mask mandates

(The Center Square) – The chairman of the Indiana Senate’s education committee said this week he doesn’t think the state legislature will look at banning school mask mandates this year.

“It’s a local decision right now. So, it’s up to local school boards, unless there’s a mandate from the state or a local official,” said Sen. Jeff Raatz, R-Richmond.

And even that may not be enough. Senate Bill 5, Raatz points out, which was passed and became law in Indiana this year, requires a county health order issued during a declared emergency be approved by a county commission before it can take effect.

On Monday, Raatz chaired a study committee hearing in Indianapolis that looked at the drop in ILEARN test scores, which appeared to show much larger drops for schools in urban areas, where more schools were online last year, as opposed to in-person.

The divide was urban versus rural.

“I suspect the mask piece will follow pretty much along those same lines,” Raatz told The Center Square.

And that seems to be the case.

Almost all of the school districts in the state that are in cities are requiring kids to wear masks in schools – Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Gary, Hammond, Carmel, Noblesville, Fishers, Bloomington, Lafayette, Muncie, Terre Haute and Evansville.

School boards in some smaller cities like Mishawaka and Elkhart have also voted to require masks in schools in recent days amid an increasing number of kids testing positive for COVID-19.

Amid an outcry from parents opposed to mask mandates, Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, said he supported local school corporations making their own decisions on whether to make kids wear masks in schools.

“I think the schools that are putting mask mandates into place are making a wise decision when the facts warrant it,” Holcomb said earlier this month.

In Carmel, two children were suspended from school last week after their mother requested a religious exemption from mask-wearing for them and was denied. The mother, Jackie O’Keefe, met with school district staff, and the children were allowed back into the school after getting mouth shields that they could comfortably wear.

O’Keefe and other parents protested outside the last school board meeting, which had been moved to 8 a.m. on a Monday, with no public comment period.

In Owen County, the local health officer rescinded her order that all students wear masks in schools after a citizen pointed out that the mandate had not been voted on by the county commission. The school district is now mask-optional.

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