Tiny town of Floyd, N.M., takes on state’s Public Education Department in mask debate | Local News

L.eon Nall sat alone in the volunteer fire station, a worker’s cowboy hat over his weathered face. The Floyd rancher and volunteer firefighter, 61, has seen many changes in this rural village west of Portales.

The big farms have slowly taken over much of the land around the city, supplanting the little guy whose farms have been difficult in the past due to a lack of irrigation water, he said.

But the city’s school, which is located in the center of the approximately 100-inhabitant community, has been a constant – in good times and bad, through abundance and drought. Regardless of what happened in the world, the Floyd Municipal Schools pretty much embodied old-fashioned small-town values, Nall said.

“It feels like home,” he said of the tiny village, which, he added, “is struggling to survive right now.”

Nall, who chaired the school district’s education committee through earlier this month, said the 200+ children attending Floyd’s schools – most of them from farms and ranches far outside town – are being educated by people who care for the students from a city that makes sure the classroom matters.

It has been like that, he added, since his father Mark graduated from Floyd High in the early 1940s.

But, as sometimes happens in a go-go-go world, the change in Floyd was instantaneous.

That month, the district and its school board became embroiled in a David versus Goliath battle that touches many of New Mexico’s hot buttons – health, education, children, and government.

On August 4, the State Department of Education suspended the Floyd Schools Board after they voted 5-0 to make wearing masks in the district’s classrooms an option – not a requirement. The state has mandated that all elementary and secondary school students who have not yet been vaccinated must wear masks.

The Department of Education also reinstated District Superintendent Damon Terry after the Board put him on administrative leave for refusing to take part in the defiant action.

After the school board was suspended, Secretary of State for Public Education Ryan Stewart appointed Stan Rounds, the executive director of the New Mexico Coalition of Educational Leaders and a former superintendent in Las Cruces, as the district’s temporary one-man school board.

In Floyd and elsewhere, the decision was made with all the enthusiasm that locals would give for a prairie fire. Many have loudly complained that the state is overstepping its borders and withdrawing decision-making from the community that cares most about its children.

Meanwhile, the state ministry of education has filed a complaint with the state district court, asking the court to confirm its decision as valid.

Sitting at the empty fire station about a quarter of a mile down the street from the school that housed Floyd’s kindergarten kids, Nall admitted that he never thought he and his fellow board members would be in the middle of a legal firefight.

“Yes, it’s lonely,” said Nall with a smile. “That’s not fun.”

Along with fellow board member Charlsea Lee and local parent company Destiny Gomez, Nall described the events that led to the suspension, emphasizing that board members simply voted the way their constituents wanted.

“We are forced to make decisions about what we think is best for students,” he said.

Gomez, who has two children aged 5 and 6 in schools, said the dispute could even go beyond state control versus local control.

“It should be the parents’ choice,” she said, noting that her youngest daughter is “distracted” from studying while wearing a mask. “It is our responsibility to keep our children safe. It may be different for each parent, but it is their responsibility for each child. “

Although coronavirus infections are on the rise in New Mexico, especially on the east side of the state, Gomez said she could take her children to a local wholesale store in nearby Clovis, where she works as an apartment complex manager, and see lots of people watching her don’t wear masks.

“You see kids without masks all the time,” she said.

Although Roosevelt County, where Floyd is located, has the lowest vaccination rate in New Mexico, Nall said the question of masking or vaccination should remain a person that should be answered to their satisfaction.

He said if a shopkeeper asked him to wear a mask, he would “if I had to go in there.” Otherwise, he said, he would go to another store.

“This body, this temple of God that sits right here is my property,” he said, referring to himself. “I firmly believe in private property rights. Whenever I enter your property, I have to do what you say. “

Schools, he said, are “state owned. And who is the state? We are.”

The state doesn’t see it that way.

Cheers on both sides

The question of whether school districts or the Department of Education should have the final say in the management of certain affairs has arisen repeatedly in the past, regardless of whether the state governor was a Democrat or a Republican.

Under former Republican Governor Susana Martinez, some local school authorities argued that they – not the state – were best placed to decide whether schools should give letter grades or develop teacher evaluation systems.

Nationwide, some school districts in Republican-ruled states are pushing against regulations that don’t require children to wear masks in schools – a story that runs counter to the Floyd situation.

Former Santa Fe Public Schools board member Frank Montaño said that while boards should have “as much local autonomy as possible” on such matters, cracking down on the state is likely to create problems.

“Ultimately, the state is in charge,” he said. And school board members who are undergoing the training required to serve should know this, he added.

He said no school board should assume that all of the parents they represent would agree with their decision. These parents may prefer state control in some cases and local control in other cases.

“In Floyd, some parents cheer the school board. And some parents may cheer the state, ”said Montaño.

He laughed as he remembered parents who opposed the idea gathering and dragging Democrat, Bill Richardson, into the fray when the Santa Fe School Board tried to close Alvord Elementary School. Richardson ordered the education department to stop the operation, which delayed the closure but did not stop it.

“It really depends on the situation whether you want the local or state agency to do the deal for you,” he said.

In Floyd’s case, the Public Education Department is looking to the courts to assist with this. In a complaint filed with the First Judicial District Court earlier this month, the department’s attorneys sought a “permanent injunction.” They want the court to state that the agency “acted legally in suspending the Floyd School Board.”

The board has now hired a lawyer, Robert Aragon from Albuquerque. Efforts to reach Aragon for comment on Friday were unsuccessful, but Nall said that based on his interview with the attorney, “the local school board has the authority to draft guidelines for schools in the state”.

Although this case is filed specifically against the Floyd school district, it is tied to a larger, pending lawsuit in which a coalition of nearly 20 districts, including Floyd, claims Stewart exceeded his powers to impose requirements on students To return to school. People studying in public schools and when employees should get tested for COVID-19, among other things.

In June, a judge denied the Ministry of Public Education’s motion to dismiss the case.

Stewart is preparing to leave his position in about a week. Long-time educator and administrator Kurt Steinhaus, who retired in May as superintendent of Los Alamos Public Schools, will replace him and grapple with the consequences of both cases.

In a radio interview on Friday on local radio station KSWV, Steinhaus said the state wanted to protect the Floyd students as the pandemic continues to spread. He said they “would not be safe” under pressure from the former school authorities for optional security measures.

He said the Floyd students “learn, they are happy and do what they have to be”. [doing] to be safe in school. “

In the meantime, Rounds said he would not be drawn into the “masks, not masks” debate.

“My personal feelings about it need to be put aside,” he said.

He said all students in the school obey state mask requirements.

On the subject of control, Rounds said, “Historically, there has always been tension between government rules and regulations because they tend to be one size fits all. This is how the state procedure works. There is always a tension between that and the differences in the individual districts. “

He said he planned to hold a board meeting soon out of consideration for the community. Right now he’s already making administrative decisions, signing documents to make sure everyone gets paid, planning the school district’s annual audit, and approving board minutes and district finances.

He said he did not know how the situation would play out with the previous board members, some of whom are up for re-election later this year. He said they could be reinstated if they step back from their current position.

Nall said that was unlikely.

“I’m stubborn,” he said. “Why should I vote for something that doesn’t help, something that I know is bad for education? That is not my duty. “

Lee, who like Nall said that Floyd’s parents unanimously supported the board’s position, said she felt the same way.

“I swore to be an advocate for these children, to be a voice for their parents,” she said.

She said that while she can’t predict what will happen next, “I hope something changes and we get our local control back”.