Three Loudoun County families have filed suit against the school board for voting to uphold the mask mandate, which defies Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order declaring parents could opt-out of having their child wear a mask in school.
The plaintiffs in the civil suit, filed in Loudoun County Circuit Court, are Kristen Barnett, Heather Yescavage, and Colin Doniger. All have children in the county’s elementary schools.
The suit alleges the school board overstepped its authority in voting to continue the mask mandate established by former Gov. Ralph Northam, despite Youngkin’s Executive Order 2, which he signed on his first day in office.
By maintaining the mandate, the suit’s introductory statement says the board “is further ignoring the rights of Virginia parents to make basic decisions about the health and well-being of their children.”
According to the suit: “The true damage to children from lockdowns and ‘virtual school,’ may never be known, but current data suggests that the effects have been severe — learning loss, depression and suicide, alcoholism and drug use and more.”
The suit cites guidance from the Virginia Department of Health and acting health commissioner Dr. Colin Greene that “there is no medical reason for a vaccinated and/or masked teacher to treat an otherwise healthy unmasked student any differently than a healthy masked student.”
The lawsuit argues the Loudoun County School Board’s decision to uphold the mandate violates Youngkin’s executive order, as well as Senate Bill 1303, which requires boards to “offer in-person instruction to each student enrolled in a the local school division in a public elementary and secondary school,” and does not impose a universal mask mandate.
The parents’ suit asks the court to prohibit the school board from enforcing the mask mandate, and “denying students in-person educational instruction in Loudoun County Public Schools on the basis of their parents’ decision that they should not wear a facial mask while in attendance.”
When Youngkin’s executive order went into effect, students who arrived at Loudoun County schools unmasked were assigned to socially-distanced areas, including auditoriums and libraries, and worked on their own.
The first hearing of the suit hasn’t been scheduled yet, according to online court records.
