Montco School District Sued For Removing Mask Requirement
PERKIOMEN VALLEY, PA — The Perkiomen Valley School District is being sued in federal court by a class of plaintiffs who claim the school board's decision to remove the universal masking mandate puts students with disabilities in danger of contracting COVID-19.
The federal complaint, which was filed Friday at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, says that the Perkiomen Valley School Board's decision to make face masks optional regardless of the community's transmission rate of infection puts students with disabilities in danger, especially since in-person learning is now occurring throughout the school district.
The lawsuit alleges that the school board's 5-4 vote Dec. 13 to reverse the district's health and safety plan and make masking optional starting Jan. 24 violates the rights of students with special needs. That health/safety plan had required universal masking so long as the COVID-19 transmission rate in Montgomery County was in the "substantial" or "high" categories.
"The Board's vote permitting optional masking forces the parents of medically fragile school children with disabilities to make the shockingly unfair or unjust decision of deciding whether to pull their children out of in-person learning, causing mental harm and havoc on the child and family, or face the quantifiably increased risk of physical harm caused by exposure to severe illness or death as a result of COVID-19," the lawsuit states.
The suit says that the school board's vote fails to account for the fact that there are more than 1,000 medically fragile and disabled students in the district "who require the protection afforded by universal masking to reduce the risk of spread of COVID-19 and to enable them to have access to the school buildings for in-person instruction."
Patch reached out to the school district's solicitor, Brian Subers, of the law firm Fox Rothschild, to see if the district had any comment about the lawsuit.
"We are in receipt of the complaint and the motion for a temporary restraining order, and we are analyzing the pleadings and will be responding accordingly," Subers said by phone.
Subers said he was unable to comment further as the litigation is pending in court.
The federal complaint alleges that the Perkiomen Valley School Board's action violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
The defendants named in the suit are the school district and the individual school board members.
The complaint was filed as a class-action lawsuit, with the class defined as all current and future K-12 students attending the Perkiomen Valley School District who are unable to obtain a vaccine or for whom the vaccine has limited efficacy due to compromised or suppressed immune systems.
The suit seeks to have a judge issue a temporary restraining order enjoining the district from permitting optional masking and to issue a preliminary and permanent injunction enjoining the defendants from violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
The complaint was filed around the same time a federal judge in western Pennsylvania ruled in favor of a school district in a case involving similar allegations.
U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV had ruled that granting the restraining order sought by the plaintiffs in the Upper St. Clair School District would violate the school's board's independence and authority to enact policy as the elected policymakers for the community.
However, Stickman's ruling was subsequently overturned by an appeals court that ordered the Upper St. Clair School District to reinstate universal masking, albeit temporarily.
A panel of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to review that issue further.
The plaintiffs in the Perkiomen Valley case are being represented by Lafayette Hill-based attorney Carmen A. De Gisi.
Reached by phone, De Gisi told Patch he expects to have a hearing on the matter in federal court possibly by the end of this week.
De Gisi said that as far as he's aware, this may be one of the first cases of its kind in eastern Pennsylvania.
He said given the outcome of the western Pennsylvania case, he hopes a federal judge in Philadelphia will rule similarly on his petition.
"We're hoping to get the same results," De Gisi said.
This article originally appeared on the Perkiomen Valley Patch
