Editorial: Masks or no, schools must be responsible

The young girl stood with classmates outside Greater Latrobe High School on Tuesday.

It was the first day of the state Department of Health’s new mask mandate requiring people in schools and child care centers in Pennsylvania to wear masks as part of efforts to reduce exposure and spread of covid-19.

Throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania, the issue has been creating division. Until Gov. Tom Wolf announced the mandate on Aug. 31, school districts have been left to make up their own policies. Would they rely on the vaccinations — higher than when school ended in May or June and with students as young as 12 eligible — or require masks to mitigate spread even as the delta variant grows?

Regardless of board decisions, people were unhappy. Require masks, and some parents demanded they be allowed to exercise their own parenting authority. Leave it up to families to decide, and other parents demanded protection. School districts really had no way to win in a game the state had set them up to lose.

With the mandate in effect Tuesday, protests happened at a number of schools as some students showed up barefaced and refused to take the school- offered masks. Parents were called. Kids were sent home. And outside, students like the girl at Greater Latrobe held signs that made their positions clear.

“Don’t mask my freedom.” “No masks!” “I will not comply.”

When it comes to the masks themselves, there are definitely people who support them, oppose them or just do what they have to do to get by. Like with any debate, people should bring their best information to the table and present their positions with passion, conviction and an open mind.

But the one girl at Greater Latrobe had a sign with a different message — and one for which there is a definite answer rather than a debate.

“My health is NOT your responsibility,” the sign said, with “not” in bold red letters.

While much of the rest of the protest can be boiled down to politics or differences of opinion or even prior­itization of one risk over another, this cannot. A school district is without question responsible for the health, safety and welfare of the children who are in its care. It is not an opinion. It is a decided matter of law.

School districts must act in loco parentis — a Latin legal term meaning “in place of parents” — for their students. They have to shield students from all harms. The state, which has authority over the districts, has the same responsibility.

That is the reason Pennsylvania went to great lengths reforming mandated reporting laws in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. It is the reason hazing laws were reformed in 2019. It is why schools have locks on the doors and don’t let just anybody take a random child home and have policies about monitoring prescription and over-the-counter medication.

The mask debate is not going to go anywhere as long as the pandemic is around. People will continue to have scientific data about disease spread and valid questions and concerns about what is legal and where lines are drawn.

But schools are absolutely responsible for the welfare of those people who walk through their doors each day, and that responsibility cannot be abdicated.