Editorial: Court ruling addresses mask mandate, not safety
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The legal back and forth is over and done. Pennsylvania’s mask mandate for schools is kaput.
So now what?
Now it is up to school districts to decide whether they are going to keep the kids covered or not. That, after all, is what so many schools and parents were clamoring to do — make their own decisions about what is best for their students.
This no doubt will set up a new flurry of protests at schools and board meetings, just like the ones that happened at the beginning of the school year and again when school districts complied with the state’s mandate.
Highlands School District took a stand in advance of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling Friday, saying kids would stay masked until at least mid-January regardless of the decision.
“Students need to be in class,” board member Kelli Canonge said. “Kids are finally getting to enjoy group activities. They need to be able to interact, not over Zoom. If we are without masks and only follow social distancing, we are going to have a collapse.”
Maybe with the element of force removed, the issue can become less polarized. Maybe if someone isn’t saying, “You must wear this mask,” people will be more inclined to make the decision for themselves.
That would be helpful as hospitals are overburdened with covid-19 patients. Westmoreland County recently passed 1,000 pandemic deaths. Allegheny County has topped 2,500. Between the two counties, there have been more than 200,000 people testing positive for covid.
The legal decision against the mandate doesn’t change the benefits of caution, including the wearing of masks. If parents and schools want to make the decisions for their kids, let us hope they are making smart calls with everyone’s health and safety in mind.
Sometimes that seems to take a backseat to posturing and defending turf, from the governor’s office to the local schools. Gov. Tom Wolf already had announced the mandate would be lifted as of Jan. 17. Yet, he still appealed the Commonwealth Court’s previous striking of the measure because of legal precedent.
Imagine if more decisions about kids’ health at this precarious time were made not motivated by politics and bristling against authority but by common sense.