Des Moines, Iowa — Governor Kim Reynolds will appeal a judge’s ruling that some Iowa children with serious medical conditions are harmed by the law she signed that bars schools from having mask mandates.
A federal judge has ruled high-risk children are endangered when students and staff around them are not wearing masks. Some of the parents who filed the lawsuit say they’ve had to keep their kids at home and their children are being denied the kind of specialized instruction they’d receive at school.
Attorneys for the State of Iowa have argued the 2021 law banning mask mandates in schools provides exceptions that would address those kind of circumstances.
Governor Reynolds says a federal appeals court has already noted COVID-19 conditions have changed significantly, but it did not discuss the case entirely. Reynolds says her appeal will again make the argument that parents, not the government, should decide whether their children wear a mask at school.
