Court dismisses lawsuit challenging school authority to require masks in PA
The Commonwealth Court has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the state Department of Education and five other school districts, including Pennsbury in Bucks County, over mask requirements.
The Dec. 1 ruling ends a legal challenge asserting school districts did not have the authority to require masks after another ruling struck down a statewide Department of Health mandate for face coverings two years ago.
An opinion from Commonwealth Court Judge Christine Fizzano Cannon found that an email advising that schools could continue to implement mask requirements was not an order and that lawsuit was moot now that schools had mostly lifted pandemic rules.
“The current availability of effective vaccines, the CDC's widespread abandonment of masking recommendations for non-high-risk individuals, and the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of the decreasing virulence of successive variants all suggest that fears of a return to masking requirements are more hypothetical speculation than concrete likelihood,” Cannon said.
Rudolph Clarke, LLC Partner Peter Amuso, who represented Pennsbury with attorney Samantha Newell, described the filing from nine parents of school-aged children in three counties, the Lehigh Valley and Pittsburgh as an attempt to “invalidate” the power of school boards to respond to a pandemic.
“Through the school code, our Legislature has granted local school boards broad power to protect students based on local conditions,” said Amuso in a news release Friday. “We were proud to protect those broad powers for Pennsbury and our other school district clients, and for all school districts across the Commonwealth. We continue to be ready to assist our clients facing these complex safety issues.”
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The lawsuit stemmed from an email sent by Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Noe Ortega to districts across the state in November 2021 advising that they had the authority to require masks in school regardless of state requirements, court documents show.
“School entities still possess the authority and are encouraged to require masks in their facilities as recommended by [the] CDC. Masking in school settings minimizes the spread of COVID-19, particularly in settings where individuals and students are not vaccinated, and allows for reduced quarantining to keep individual students and staff in school,” Ortega wrote.
The email followed the Commonwealth Court’s ruling voiding an Aug. 30, 2021, order from then Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam requiring masks in school.
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Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court upheld the Commonwealth Court's decision last December when it was challenged by Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration, ending the mandate more than a month before Wolf said it would expire.
Wolf announced the expiration date of the mandate just days before the Commonwealth Court’s initial ruling.
Pennsbury was one of several school districts in Bucks County that continued to require masks after the state mandate ended as a newer variant of the coronavirus was driving a surge of COVID-19 cases that winter.
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It wasn’t until Feb. 8, 2021, however, that parents filed their petition with the court asserting that Ortega’s email erred in advising school districts that they could require masks and that school districts lacked the authority to enforce mask rules.
In addition to Ortega and Pennsbury, the petition specifically named the Fox Chapel Area School District, in Allegheny County; the Stroudsburg Area School District, Monroe County; Parkland School District, in Lehigh County; and the Carlynton School District and Seneca Valley School District, in Pittsburgh.
While Amuso, who coordinated with attorneys for the education department and other named school districts, argued that school boards had the authority to require masks under Section 510 of the Public School Code, the court ruling does not address that argument.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: PA court dismisses challenge over masks in Pennsbury, other districts
