Aug 28, 2021 4 min read

Parents seeking to overturn Peter Township School District’s universal masking requirement were delivered a defeat in the Washington County Court of Common Pleas Friday.

Senior Judge Katherine B. Emery denied their request for an injunction, and the mandate will stay in place while a lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 100 people against the Peters Township School Board of Directors moves forward.

Michael Hammond, the attorney representing the parents suing the district, argued that the school board overstepped its authority by making the masking requirement part of the student code of conduct.

He said choosing whether or not to wear a mask is a personal, medical decision and does not have anything to do with conduct.

Emery told the courtroom, “That’s just not clear,” and compared the masking requirement to the school having a dress code students need to follow.

The school board voted to approve the masking requirement at its Aug. 16 meeting, and later upheld it at a special meeting Wednesday.

Following the hearing, Hammond said Emery’s ruling did not surprise him, but that the larger issue at hand is that the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) “abdicated its responsibility.”

“We feel like they are the body that ultimately is in charge of deciding whether or not masks should be required in schools,” Hammond said. “They’re really putting every school district in an unenviable position of having to fight, a lot of times, within their own communities, take a lot of heat, and that’s really unfortunate.”

Absent a mandate from the state or federal level, Hammond contends that the district lacks the authority to make students wear masks.

“Our position is if the CDC recommends only, and the state Department of Health recommends only, then the school board ought to recommend only, and let it be each parent’s choice,” Hammond said.

Peters Township district Solicitor Jocelyn Kramer agreed with Hammond that the DOH put them in a difficult position, but said their unwillingness to mandate masks across Pennsylvania schools does not preclude school districts from doing so.

“We really would like more support from the Department of Health, but the Department of Health has delegated to the school district the obligation to make this decision,” Kramer said.

Kramer added that it was a “difficult decision,” but with the current rules for contact tracing and quarantining students exposed to COVID-19, it was the best way for the district to keep students in the classroom.

“What we have to deal with the current rules is that if both students aren’t masked within a close contact situation, both students have to be quarantined. So you’re infringing upon the rights of another student if you’re a student who would choose to not wear a mask, and that’s put us in a very difficult position,” Kramer said.

Several parents hoping to see the mask requirement lifted attended Friday’s hearing. Jill Bullister has two children enrolled in the district, one at the high school and one at McMurray Elementary.

Bullister fought tears as she discussed what she sees as the district overstepping to make decisions about her children’s health.

“I don’t envy them at all to have to make those decisions,” Bullister said. “They have to know they don’t have that authority to rule, or even the expertise, to rule on health issues. I think that if it were important that the Department of Health would issue a mandate instead of a recommendation.”

Bullister went on to say she and other parents lack faith in elected officials and government agencies to make decisions about public health.

“We have lost faith in our systems, and I’ve not lost faith in the people, but I’ve lost faith in the system,” Bullister said.