Tennessee schools with mask mandates may keep them in place in spite of an effort by Gov. Bill Lee to prohibit districts from issuing and enforcing such mandates.
Lee continues to lose in court on this highly politicized issue.
The Tennessean reports on the decision:
A federal judge in Nashville on Friday temporarily blocked Tennessee from preventing schools from issuing mask mandates and from stripping local health and school officials of their ability to set COVID-19 quarantine policies.
U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw issued the 54-page ruling on a motion to block the law after the parents of students with disabilities in Tennessee schools filed a lawsuit last month against the new law.
Crenshaw wrote that it is in the “public’s interest to slow the spread of COVID-19 in Tennessee’s schools.”
“Defendants have proffered absolutely nothing to suggest that any harm would come from allowing individual school districts to determine what is best for their schools, just as they did prior to the enactment” of the new state law, Crenshaw said.
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Thank you to Waverly Crenshaw! His verdict is common sense. Covid is still a problem. I am a public high school teacher. This week 2 kids in my classroom tested positive for Covid. One teacher that I know of in my school also tested positive. I am worried about what the winter will bring. Flu has also started. Wearing masks helps stop the spread of colds, flu, and Covid. Why doesn’t Lee care about public health?