Pennsylvania mandates masks in K-12 schools, day cares

In a move that undoubtedly pleased some parents and infuriated others, the Pennsylvania Department of Health on Tuesday laid out an order mandating masks for students, teachers and staff in K-12 schools that will take effect next week.

“I preferred for local school boards to make this decision,” Gov. Tom Wolf said. “Unfortunately, an aggressive nationwide campaign is spreading misinformation about mask-wearing and pressuring and intimidating school districts to reject mask policies that will keep kids safe and in school.”

It is a reversal from earlier this month when Wolf said he was not considering a mask mandate for Pennsylvania schools. State officials cited the rising cases and the delta variant as a necessary reason for the shift. Republican leaders said Wolf was subverting democracy in announcing the mandate.

The state’s order goes into effect Sept. 7 and covers K-12 schools, early learning programs and child care facilities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this summer began recommending universal masking in schools.

Wolf pointed to rising case counts among children both locally and across the country.

Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam said cases among children aged zero to 17 have risen 277% between mid-July and Aug. 20. She said she realizes the mask order will cause consternation among some.

“We are asking folks to keep it in perspective,” she said, noting that when the state was seeing this level of spread last year, students were relegated to virtual learning. “The guidance has evolved based on lessons learned.”

She said her order is in the best interest of students returning to the classroom.

“We need to take extra steps to protect them and preserve in-person education along with Friday night lights and extracurricular activities,” Beam said. “Unfortunately, we are already seeing evidence that students in schools where masks are optional are suffering the consequences of not following the public health recommendations from the CDC.”

She pointed to several school districts in different corners of the state that postponed or canceled high school football games last week because of covid-19 outbreaks and said more than 5,000 Pennsylvania students have tested positive for the virus since schools began reopening.

The move comes about a week after Wolf called on the Republican-controlled legislature to reconvene and pass legislation requiring masks in classrooms.

Just 59 school districts out of the 474 that submitted health and safety plans to the Department of Education had implemented mandatory masking policies as of the end of July, officials said. Thirty of those school districts were in Allegheny County.

Jason Gottesman, spokesperson for House Republicans, said at the time there were no plans to return to the Capitol before the scheduled return date in September.

Wolf administration officials have held firm in saying that despite the May vote to limit the governor’s emergency powers, the administration still has the power to issue public health orders – including a mask mandate.

To that end, Tuesday’s mask mandate comes as an order from the state Department of Health.

Pennsylvania is now averaging more than 3,200 new, confirmed infections daily — 20 times the number of cases it was reporting on a typical day in early July, Beam said. More than 1,700 people are hospitalized with covid-19, up sevenfold since last month. Deaths have doubled in two weeks to about 20 per day.

Masking has become a highly contentious issue, and school board meetings have been the scene of heated debate as parents argue for and against. Last week, parents of special needs children sued a suburban Philadelphia school board that refused to mandate masks.

Lawsuits have cropped up in several school districts, some aimed at making masks mandatory and others aimed at striking down such mandates. North Allegheny board members had initially mandated masks but reversed course over parent outcry. A group of parents filed a lawsuit seeking in injunction, and a federal judge last week found that the reversal violated due process rules.

A subsequent school board meeting had to be shut down after several parents refused to wear masks.

At Quaker Valley, where masks were already mandated, parents staged a small protest before the a committee meeting and legislative session earlier this week.

“It’s rotten,” said grandparent Lori Cunningham on Monday. “We send the kids to school to get an education, not to be indoctrinated on what they should have to wear. We trust our pediatricians to make the decisions on the child’s health, not the school board.”

“In the end, what we all want is what they want,” Wolf said of parents who have pushed back adamantly against mask mandates in schools. “And that is to keep our kids in school, to keep sports being played. Those are the things we can’t do if we don’t do something like this.”

To that end, though, he said he’s “not sure why there’s push back on this.”

“If we don’t do this, where does that leave us?” Wolf said. “School events are canceled. School is canceled. Students are sent home to quarantine. Parents have to stay home away from work to take care of those kids while they’re in quarantine. There are a whole lot of bad things that happen that we see every day – look around.”

‘Mandates are mandates’

By and large, school administrators who returned request for comment said they will change their masks-optional policies to comply with the Department of Health order.

“Mandates are mandates,” said Yough Superintendent Janet Sardon. “So as a district, we will follow through with what the mandates are at this point.”

The district had planned to make masks optional. Sardon declined to say whether she believed a mask-optional approach remained a better choice.

The Deer Lakes School District had also been mask-optional. Students returned last week.

“Deer Lakes School District will follow any local, state, or federal mask mandate,” said district spokesman Shawn Annarelli.

Jennifer Miele, a spokesperson for the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg, said diocesan schools will comply with the new order, though they’d originally planned to leave the decision up to students and their parents.

Norwin Superintendent Jeff Taylor said the administration still is in the process of reviewing the governor’s order that masks will be mandated when school begins for the district’s 5,100 students on Sept. 8.

Taylor said he will communicate with the district’s families, offering them an update. Masks already were mandated for students while on the school buses, but the district had opted to have masks optional for students. Plans were in the works to allow students in kindergarten through sixth grade – students who generally fall into the age group not eligible for the vaccine – to be in classroom with other masked students.

Ron Mellinger Jr., president of the Greensburg Salem School Board, said he supports his district’s most recent mask-optional policy. He added that the board and district administrators will review Wolf’s announcement at Wednesday’s board discussion session.

Mellinger said Wolf’s mask mandate “caught me off guard. I didn’t think the governor would act on it.

“I’ve always been a proponent of parents having the right to choose what’s best for their students.”

Heidi Kozar is in a three-member minority on the Greater Latrobe School Board that favored a mask mandate over a district mask-optional plan approved in July.

She said she’s pleased the governor has announced a mask mandate and noted she, lacking medical expertise, prefers following the guidance of experts rather than public opinion to decide health-related policies such as masking.

“I’m glad to see the governor taking the bull by the horns,” she said. “I think it’s a great thing, because I care about the kids in our district and keeping them healthy.”

In Brentwood, the school district reversed course on its own last week, changing from a mask-optional plan to implementing a mask mandate at the Aug. 23 school board meeting.

“We support the mandate from the governor and do believe that we should follow the medical science,” said Superintendent Amy Burch.

Legislators react along party lines

Among lawmakers, reactions expectedly fell along party lines, as the issue of public health has become one of politics as well.

Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland, said she believes the state’s efforts are well intentioned but misguided, calling the decision to require masks in schools a “personal and local decision, not a government decision.”

Rep. Ryan Warner, a Republican representing parts of Westmoreland and Fayette counties, accused Wolf of ignoring the will of state voters and said Beam’s order is “not a law.”

He said he plans to introduce legislation that would amend the state constitution to restrict the powers of the state Secretary of Health.

He said the amendment would bar the secretary from closing businesses, requiring physical distancing for those not ill, mandating face coverings, ordering residents to shelter in place, quarantine or isolate, or restricting travel – all tradition mitigation measures imposed in Pennsylvania and the country as a whole at the height of the pandemic.

Rep. Tim O’Neal, R-Washington, said in a statement that covid-19 decisions “should be solidly based on science and data” and “masking should be implemented only in places where data shows it is appropriate, and only for the length of time needed.”

The CDC recommends universal masking in schools.

It is a recommendation long endorsed by Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and county Director of Health Dr. Debra Bogen.

“In the last month, we have seen increasing cases of covid-19 among children, especially those who are not yet eligible for vaccination,” Bogen said. “Today’s actions by the state ensures that we are all taking the appropriate steps to protect our children while also providing for reason exceptions.”

Fitzgerald, too, applauded the move.

“With these numbers going up, it’s imperative that we keep our children in school and childcare centers open so that our residents can continue to work and keep our economy going,” he said.

The state’s largest teachers’ union also applauded the move.

“This isn’t a choice between masking or not masking,” said Pennsylvania State Education Association President Rick Askey. “It is a choice between keeping schools open for in-person learning or forcing far too many students to learn from the other side of a screen.”

Rep. Austin Davis, an Allegheny County Democrat representing parts of the Mon Valley, issued a similar statement. He said with the rapid increase in cases, “the situation has reached a point where we need to take this action.”

He noted that vaccination rates in the Mon Valley are relatively low compared to the rest of Allegheny County.

“Since many school-aged children aren’t yet eligible for the shot,” Davis said, “masking will play an important role in protecting them from the virus.”

House Democratic Leader Joanna McClinton, D-Delaware and Philadelphia counties, called it “the correction decision” that will protect children too young to be vaccinated.

“This also will help us to keep our schools and day cares open,” she said, “which is essential to so many parents, workers and businesses all over Pennsylvania.”