Voters in the Floyd Municipal Schools district are scratching their heads. Her five school board members were fired at the beginning of the school year, and a seasoned Las Cruces headmaster took over her tiny school district in rural Roosevelt County.
This is because the board voted not to follow the Department of Public Education’s guidelines on masks in K-12 public schools. The Floyd board voted to make masks optional, while PED made masks mandatory for many teachers and students.
Technically, neither Albuquerque nor Santa Fe public schools follow state guidelines. They enforce stricter guidelines for wearing masks than required by the PED. However, they have no effect.
Why is more OK but less is not? The answer is obvious. It is easier to accept a district that wants to be “as safe as possible” than one that is “parents know best”.
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But as much as the Journal’s editorial board disagrees with Floyd’s decision to make wearing masks optional, the real point here is when and how the state should withdraw its powers from a locally elected school board.
Why is the state’s first choice “heads off”?
State public schools law gives the school secretariat the power to suspend a local school board, headmaster, or headmaster pending a public hearing. But instead of scheduling such a hearing, PED has filed a lawsuit in a state district court to request the permanent removal of the Floyd school board members. The PED warns of “irreparable injuries” in its complaint and says that school authorities must leave because of an impending outbreak of COVID-19 cases.
Floyd’s school board voted in late July to make masks and social distancing optional for its three schools and 225 students. To be clear, it was an unwise decision. While Roosevelt County has around 18,000 residents, 2,178 tested positive for COVID-19 and 61 have died from the virus. And while there was only one new case of the virus in Roosevelt County on Thursday, the number rose to 17 on Friday. The coronavirus is indeed on the rise, especially in southeastern New Mexico.
PED has issued its guidelines that all vaccinated and unvaccinated persons must mask themselves in elementary school buildings and buses, and all unvaccinated persons must wear masks in middle and high school buildings and buses – according to the vote of the Floyd board of directors.
Both Albuquerque and Santa Fe public schools have stricter policies – requiring all students, staff and visitors to wear masks in school buildings regardless of class and regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not. So it’s obviously okay to be more restrictive, but no less.
Back in Floyd, outgoing PED secretary Ryan Stewart warned school board members that they could be removed if they didn’t change their policies, but school board digged in and upheld their decision on Aug. 2. Stewart removed them on August 4th.
It was the second time this year that the PED suspended a school board, but this time there was no alleged wrongdoing.
PED suspended all five members of the Los Lunas School Committee in June on “credible evidence” that some board members have broken the procurement code, faked false allegations of financial misconduct, tried to blackmail suppliers, and more.
In this case, ensuring the responsible use of public money is a whole different ball game.
The state constitution gives voters the right to dismiss school board members for “misdemeanor or misdemeanor” or breach of their oath of office, but remains silent about whether a state agency is politically empowered to take over a school district.
In the meantime, this is not the first battle against the K-12 pandemic.
A coalition of 18 school districts, including Floyd Schools, sued Stewart and PED in October over previous COVID-19 policies, which included requiring schools to provide students with certain materials and dictating how and when students should have lunch should be distributed. The districts argued that some of the policies either violated the state constitution or did not have the governor’s public health powers.
This case is pending before District Court Judge Matthew Wilson, who is also the presiding judge on the high profile Yazzie / Martinez lawsuit and the Floyd School Board’s permanent removal lawsuit.
Meanwhile, Stan Rounds, executive director of the New Mexico Coalition of Educational Leaders, replaces the Floyd school board. State Sen. David Gallegos, R-Eunice, and a member of the Eunice school board, said Rounds on Wednesday that Rounds is an “honorable man” and a “gifted educator,” but his appointment shows that PED does not respect parents and students in Floyd.
“(I) am deeply concerned that a duly elected school councilor may be dismissed without legal authority and replaced by an unelected person with no connection or interest in the district,” Gallegos said in a press release, adding, Rounds lives in Las Cruces. where he was once headmaster.
Whether or not you support the PED’s mask policy – and the Journal Editorial Board does – the core question with Floyd is whether the state Department of Education has exceeded its powers in this case – and what the right process is if the state and a local entity disagree.
It is up to our courts to give a clear direction.
This editorial first appeared in the . It was written by members of the editorial team and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than that of the authors.
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