Virginia’s new governor was only sworn in on Saturday, and immediately signed 11 executive orders in a notorious Day One cliché.
Included were orders to overturn mask mandates for public schools, a ban on a vaccine mandate for state workers, and a ban on the teaching of critical race theory.
The school mask mandate ban states that any parent can opt out for any reason.
However, numerous Virginia school districts announced that they would continue with the CDC recommendation, even as Youngkin hints he likes Ron DeSantis’s idea of withholding funding from school boards who defy the ban.
The law may even be on the side of school boards who opt to maintain mask mandates. A state law passed by the General Assembly and signed by the former governor may well require them to implement mask requirements.
Law experts suggest that a court may well decide that existing law is controlling, and that a “new governor can’t undo that by executive order without asking the legislature to amend that statute.”
Youngkin’s election was influenced by the GOP’s effort to cancel all teachings of Critical Race Theory and its “divisive concepts” in public schools.
The Virginia Department of Education has stated that CRT is not among its current state standards of learning, but that doesn’t stop the GOP from railing against its (nonexistent) teachings in K-12 schools.