Iowa Gov. Reynolds prohibits K-12 schools, cities and counties from mandating masks

DES MOINES — Iowa districts scrambled Thursday to comply with a new order banning mask mandates in schools that was passed in the final hours of the 2021 legislative session and signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds just hours before the school day started.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and Linn-Mar school districts are among those that announced early Thursday they will abide by the new law and no longer require face coverings for students, staff or visitors effective immediately.

In an email to families, Cedar Rapids Community School District Superintendent Noreen Bush said the system is “unclear” yet if this applies to students and staff on school buses, as federal law requires masks on all public transportation vehicles, including buses. The district also apologized for the abrupt timing of the notice, which Bush said “did not provide families any time to plan.”

The Linn-Mar and Iowa City community school districts were encouraging students and staff to continue wearing face coverings when in school buildings.

“While face coverings are no longer required, we strongly encourage families to have their students wear a face covering, especially if they have not received the COVID-19 vaccination,” Superintendent Matt Degner said in an email to families. “We also recommend staff continue to wear face coverings while at work and social distancing is not possible. Bullying and harassment of individuals who choose whether or not to wear a face covering will not be tolerated.”

Most districts are completing their academic year over the next two weeks and some had decided to keep their mask requirements in place for the remainder of the school year. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommends schools continue to use COVID-19 prevention strategies — including face masks — for the remainder of the 2020-2021 school year.

Even so, the GOP governor hailed the last-minute legislation.

“The state of Iowa is putting parents back in control of their child’s education and taking greater steps to protect the rights of all Iowans to make their own health care decisions,” she said in a statement. “I am proud to be a governor of a state that values personal responsibility and individual liberties. I want to thank the Iowa Legislature for their quick work in bringing this bill to my desk so that it can be signed into law.”

The new law also prohibits city and county governments from enacting face mask requirements that exceed the state's face mask policy. Iowa currently has no statewide face mask requirement. Throughout the pandemic that started here in March 2020, the state enacted a face mask rule only partially requiring their use from November 2020 through early February.

Mayors in Coralville and Iowa City already had lifted their own local mask mandates. In Cedar Rapids, Mayor Brad Hart had eased the city’s mask mandate to end the mask-wearing requirement for fully vaccinated individuals in most indoor and outdoor settings in line with modified CDC guidance.

To comply with the new state law, Hart on Thursday lifted the city’s mask mandate. Businesses may opt to require masks within their own locations.

“Some cities and counties are in a different place in fighting the pandemic, but the Legislature and the governor do not see it that way, which to me is disappointing,” Hart said Thursday. “It should be a local control issue, but obviously we’re going to comply with laws.”

Hart pointed to statements CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has made encouraging more local control over guidance on mask-wearing. "We wanted to deliver the science of the individual level, but we also understand that these decisions have to be made at the community's level," Walensky said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

“This is just more politics over science,” Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, said Wednesday night as lawmakers debated the provision. “Masks have saved lives. We should continue to let this decision be made by local officials.”

The measure was introduced in an amendment to House File 847, and passed both chambers on party-line votes, with Republicans supporting and Democrats opposing.

COVID-19 activity has plummeted in Iowa since the deadly winter surge, but the virus still is spreading in the state and new variants continue to emerge. On Thursday morning, another 233 new cases were recorded, according to Iowa public health data.

The Food and Drug Administration earlier this month granted emergency approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to be administered to 12- to 15-year-olds. It previously was approved for people 16 and up. The other two vaccines available now, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, are approved only for those 18 and older.

So the percentage of school students who have been vaccinated remains small.

One local doctor criticized the move Thursday, saying it could be “disastrous” for some families.

Dr. Scott Nau, a pediatrician at Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids, said he already has received calls from parents of immunocompromised or otherwise high-risk children requesting a doctor’s note to pull their child out of school for the remainder of the year.

Research has shown while healthy children are less likely to experience severe outcomes from a COVID-19 infection, they are still capable of spreading it. Nau said he worries children could bring the virus home to older family members, who could become severely ill or die.

“I don’t think see we’ll see big outbreaks, but it puts special- needs kids at risk and it puts families with fragile health at risk,” he said. “It didn’t need to happen.”

The new law comes on the heels of guidance issued earlier this week by the head of the state’s public health department, Kelly Garcia, recommending school districts and child care centers treat COVID-19 like any other childhood illness, such as the flu.

Grace King, Michaela Ramm and Marissa Payne of The Gazette and Erin Murphy of The Gazette-Lee Des Moines Bureau contributed to this report.