Thread by @oliviakrauth

Hello from Frankfort! The Administrative Regulation Review subcommittee is meeting at 10 a.m. to review KDE’s recent mask mandate for public schools.

About 10 people are protesting the mandate outside.

Mask-wearing is mixed inside the Capitol Annex. Most lawmakers, journalists and members of Ky.'s Student Voice team are masked up. Several others are not.

The subcommittee is reviewing this emergency reg from the Ky. Dept. of Ed, which the Ky. Board of Ed unanimously approved Thursday.

It would require masks in public schools for up to 270 days, which is the timeline outlined in state law for emer. regs.

courier-journal.com/story/news/edu…

And we're getting started.

I believe seven of the eight subcommittee members are present in-person or online. Sen. Julie Raque Adams said she is out of town on a family emergency.

KDE's mask mandate is up first. Education Commissioner Jason Glass, plus KBE chair Lu Young and general counsel Todd Allen, are zooming in.

"As a pandemic, it is well beyond being a personal health challenge or choice," Glass says.

Due to legal challenges involving Beshear's executive powers, it is unclear what authority the subcommittee has over the regulations.

My understanding is that they can find it "deficient" for not rising to the level of an emergency, and send it to Beshear for review.

First up in testimony: The Ky. Student Voice Team.

The Student Voice Team supports the statewide mask mandates.

Masks are the "least invasive way" to keep students and educators safe while keeping kids in class in-person, one student tells lawmakers.

HS senior Pragya Upreti: Worse than masks at lunch, is the prospect of having to eat lunch alone again.

Shannon Stocker, whose daughter Cassidy is on chemo, is on Zoom. She's holding up a photo of her daughter and her phone, playing a voice memo of Cassidy's thoughts on ending the mask mandate.

COVID "could end my life, and that scares me. It really scares me," Cassidy says.

Stocker: "No one's choice to wear a mask is more important than my child's right to live."

One parent whose name I missed ends with: "I'm not interested in the Hunger Games playing out right here in our Commonwealth."

A man is currently providing Merriam-Webster's definition of "liberty."

"Just as much as I should have the choice to wear a mask, another individual also has the same choice to wear the masks," he says, maybe missing a word there.

"That is America."

A doctor with quite a 'stache, nearly half a century of medical experience and "more degrees than a thermometer" has provided our first hydroxychloroquine reference.

"Masks do not work," he says. One person in the room says, "that's right."

We went from "please help protect our kids" to "liberty!" territory reaaaaaal quick.

REAL. QUICK.

Nathan, who came up to the table with his dad, said "it is going to extremely scare me" if they go back to school without masks.

He is 11.

We have our first mention of how Beshear disbanded the Ky. Board of Ed on his first day in office and first insinuation that Beshear orchestrated their mask mandate.

Different groups, separate authorities.

Terri Conen went after the two Ky Student Voice members, saying such fear of their classmates is not normal and she worries about their mental health.

Crowd applauds, someone says "that's right." The two students are sitting in the center of the room, surrounded by anti-maskers

I'll add that Conen testified via Zoom and did not turn on her camera.

The Ky. Student Voice Team spoke in-person, with masks on, and stayed to listen to *all* of this. Including what I'm sure are unexpected personal attacks.

A woman implored the subcommittee to not let the "lawlessness" of Beshear go unchecked.

The subcommittee deals with administrative regulations. The reg in question is from the Ky. Dept. of Ed. and was unanimously approved by the Ky. Board of Ed. — not Beshear.

I'm not sure if the subcommittee can find an emergency regulation "deficient" for a lot of the reasons parents and speakers against the mandate have shared.

They would need to show there was no "emergency" to warrant the "emergency" regulation.

Sarah Durand with the Bluegrass Institute is the final speaker points out that KBE's regulation was unnecessary since Beshear's E.O. is in place.

It also isn't an emergency because we've been dealing with COVID-19 for more than a year, she says.

KBE also didn't have a public comment period before passing the measure, she says.

A KDE spokeswoman says the public comment hearing is planned for late September/early October.

Testimony is done. KDE gets a chance to challenge anything that was said, which is a lot of things.

Sen. Stephen West begins questions, asking how wearing masks for several hours a day impacts kids.

Glass says this isn't new, this is what kids faced last spring. From what I've reported, kids have had few issues with masking.

Meanwhile, in the Capitol, Gov. Andy Beshear is talking about a report that there are record COVID-19 hospitalizations for kids.

West asks Glass if he has personally threatened superintendents by withholding funding for not following the mask mandate.

"YES" the crowd screams.

Glass says no. Not following the mask mandate would result in the same consequences as breaking any other state reg/law.

Someone in the crowd is raising his hand?

West seems to be going after the lack of clear penalties in the regulation.

Glass and general counsel Todd Allen have said existing processes like EPSB and local codes of conduct would cover this, just like with other regs.

West asks, given the increasing COVID-19 cases, what is different in keeping schools open now versus last year when it was deemed too dangerous.

Glass says we've learned a lot over the past year.

(Also lawmakers limited districts to 10 NTI days this year. And the vaccine)

A recurring theme: Parents and lawmakers asking state education officials to predict the path of a pandemic and/or blaming them for shifting their response as the pandemic shifts.

Sen. Ralph Alvarado: "COVID is here to stay."

He quickly pivoted to reminding Glass he is not elected like him or local school boards.

Alvarado's first question: Do you think the parents of Kentucky love their children?

Alvarado: Do you think you love the kids of Kentucky *more* than their parents?

Glass: It isn't an either-or.

Again, I don't think the subcommittee can find a regulation deficient because Glass doesn't love kids more than their own parents.

Or because the people who passed it are not elected.

Alvarado just asked why KDE is following CDC guidelines.

Alvarado is kind of bouncing from going after Glass to going after Beshear to going after both of them at the same time.

Beshear isn't here. The meeting is on KDE's regulation, not Beshear's E.O.

Alvarado, to the students who spoke, asks if they talked to 3- and 4-year-olds about this mandate.

The Ky Student Voice members left a few minutes ago.

A whole lot of critiques that Glass and KBE are "bureaucrats" and that means they can't be trusted or shouldn't be in charge of anything of substance.

Rep. Mary Lou Marizan, a retired ICU nurse, says HB 1 says Kentucky's COVID strategy should match CDC guidance.

Again, meanwhile in the Capitol, Beshear says he is actively considering a statewide mask mandate due to rising COVID-19 numbers.

Oh, I just remembered there is an entire other emergency regulation impacting child care centers on the agenda for this subcommittee, nice.

West with some clarity!! This committee cannot strike down a regulation.

They can ask KDE to withdraw the reg, defer it, or rule it deficient. Deficient regs go to Beshear and will be discussed in the 2022 legislative session.

Basically, the mandate will stay until 2022.

In an act of courtesy, West asks if KDE/KBE wants to withdraw the reg.

Glass and KBE chair Lu Young say no.

There is a motion to find KBE's regulation deficient.

West, again going after a lack of penalties outlined in the emergency regs, arguing it is "arbitrary."

🚨 The Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee finds Ky. Board of Ed's mask mandate regulation "deficient" in a party-line 5-2 vote.

Said "deficient" regulation now goes to Beshear.