Keystone Central will follow state masking mandate for district schools

BALD EAGLE TOWNSHIP, PA – While noting some clarifications are being sought, Keystone Central School District Superintendent Jacquelyn Martin said the state order on masking of students requires commonwealth school districts to comply and Keystone Central will.

Acting state Health Secretary Alison Beam signed an order on Tuesday requiring mask-wearing inside K-12 school buildings, early learning programs and child care providers. Superintendent Martin said at Thursday’s board work session she was “respectfully asking” district students to wear masks, effective Tuesday, Sept. 7.

She emphasized the need to keep students in class, for both learning and the benefits of school activities and said parental cooperation will allow the district to keep its schools open. Once the district has a five percent COVID positivity rate, she said, the district would have to go to remote learning.

Martin said there are still a couple issues to be resolved in implementing the mask mandate. These include what should be done about parents who don’t have a doctor’s approval but choose not to let their children wear masks. She indicated students who are not wearing masks may be assigned to some level of remote learning.

School board president Tracy Smith read a statement from the board. It said the district must follow the state mandate, stating it is most important that in-school learning be provided; if the district can’t enforce the mandate, it would “have to go remote; we don’t want that.”

Two community members addressed the board on the mask issue. One said he supported the wearing of masks, the other asked the board to keep mask-wearing optional and talked of an injunction to halt the mask mandate.

The superintendent said the issue has become “emotional” and “political” but the discussion at the KC board work session was civil. That stood in contrast to a Wednesday night board work session of the Penns Valley School District. Rockview state police had to be called in when a majority of attendees refused to wear masks, in violation of existing policy there. There was a delay of nearly an hour at that meeting in Spring Mills. The meeting resumed after police suggested those who refused to mask up sit in the back on the meeting room, away from those wearing masks.

Also at the Keystone Central work session, several members of the Central Mountain High School cross country team and one parent lamented the loss of the school’s junior high school cross country program. Superintendent Martin said it had been determined the junior high program had never been officially approved by the school board and therefore there were liability questions. She indicated answers are being sought to address the concerns of those upset by the loss of the junior high feeder program.

The board meeting was interrupted at the outset for a 40-minute executive session for what the district said was “legal matters.”