The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Friday announced that a lower court ruling that threw out the statewide mask mandate for K-12 schools was upheld, meaning the decision will revert back to districts immediately.
In their earlier decision, Commonwealth Court said that the acting PA Health Secretary Alison Beam did not have the authority to issue the mask mandate as the order was issued outside an emergency declaration. Commonwealth Court also said that the state’s disease control law did not give health secretaries “the blanket authority to create new rules and regulations out of whole cloth, provided they are related in some way to help control the disease or can otherwise be characterized as disease control measures”.
The decision came two days after the State Supreme Court heard oral arguments from both sides on the issue. Governor Wolf’s press secretary Beth Rementer said that the decision was “extremely disappointing”, but said that she hopes school districts will make the right decisions for mitigating Covid-19. She also urged districts to prioritize health and safety issues first, and said that masks were a simple and effective way to keep kids in school without interruption.
