Mask Mandate Spurs Recall For 4 Scottsdale School Board Members

SCOTTSDALE, AZ — Four Scottsdale Unified School District board members face recall election petitions after they voted last week to implement a districtwide mask mandate.

Recall petitions were filed against board President Jann-Michael Greenburg, Vice President Julie Cieniawski and members Patty Beckman and Libby Hart-Wells.

No petition was filed against Zach Lindsay, the fifth board member and the only one to vote against the mask mandate.

None of the four board members facing recall answered questions submitted to them by Patch.

The board's Aug. 17 4-1 vote to approve the masked mandate followed a sizable demonstration by Scottsdale parents and community members who decried a potential mask mandate and demanded freedom for parents to make their own decisions for their children.

Patricia Lee Pellet, a Scottsdale resident, filed the petitions to recall Greenburg, Cieniawski and Hart-Wells. Under their leadership, "the mental and emotional health of many SUSD students has steadily declined to an alarming level," she argued in the petitions.

The petitions also argued that education within the district was suffering. "Parents are not allowed to have a voice in the upbringing, education, health care, or mental health of their children" because of board member decisions, the petitions said.

The petitioner claimed that the community has lost confidence in the board members and that they violated parental rights under state law.

Scottsdale resident Nicole Curtis filed the petition to recall Beckman. Beckman "put the physical and mental health of students at risk by voting to mandate face coverings for K-12 students and violated parents' rights," she argued.

Neither Pellet nor Curtis responded to Patch messages seeking comment.

The four petitions must garner 20,935 signatures each by Dec. 18 to trigger recall elections. That number is calculated by taking 25 percent of the votes cast for Scottsdale school board members in the last general election and dividing it by the number of offices filled in that election, according to the Office of Maricopa County School Superintendent Steve Watson.

Hart-Wells argued at last week's school board meeting that masking was necessary to keep schools open and that in-person instruction is what's typically best for students.

As of Aug. 18, more than 2,000 Scottsdale Unified students were stuck at home either because they tested positive for COVID-19 or were a close contact of someone who did. The district did not see such numbers last year when it had a mask mandate in place.

The district required masks for students who learned in person last year but started the current school year with a mask-optional policy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended universal masking for K-12 students because of the highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus.

The parents who opposed masking might be the loudest at the moment, but there are plenty of parents who supported the district's mask mandate. Michael Norton is one of them.

Five of Norton's eight children attended Scottsdale Unified schools, and he has two daughters who are currently sophomores in the district. Norton agreed that parents should have the right to make individual decisions regarding their own children, but he doesn't believe they should have the right to potentially infect others.

"It’s OK to choose how your child will behave, but it's not OK for you to choose how that will affect my child’s safety and health," Norton said.

Students should be masked and vaccinated as well if they're old enough, he said. If parents don't want their kids to mask up and get vaccinated, they should stay home, he said.

Norton and his immediate family have dealt with two rounds of COVID-19, he said. Both times Norton's daughters caught it from other students who were being reckless. The first time his daughters were too young to be vaccinated; the second time, they were in between their first and second shots.

"Our kids have a right not to be exposed to the ridiculously reckless behavior of other human beings," Norton said.