Judge orders 5 West Chester School Board members removed over mask mandate
WEST CHESTER — A Chester County Common Pleas Court judge has ordered the removal of five members of the West Chester Area School Board in a case involving the district’s mask mandate for students during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ruling by Judge William P. Mahon on Tuesday, which roiled residents of the district already caught up in multiple hot-button debates, came after he determined that the district had not responded to the petition asking for the members’ removal in a timely fashion.
“Despite the important issues raised in the petition, (the board) failed to comply with the Rules of Civil Procedure,” Mahon wrote in his one-page order. “Failure of (the board) to comply requires this procedural result.” Mahon did not address the underlying reasons for the petition, filed by a West Chester woman who claims the board acted unconstitutionally in mandating the wearing of masks in schools by students.
“I was thrilled with (Mahon’s) order,” said Beth Ann Rosica, the plaintiff in the case, in an interview Wednesday. “I am very pleased that he found in our favor. I requested that the the school board members be removed, and they failed to respond. The judge then granted my request.”
But in asking for the judge to reconsider his decision, an attorney for the board contended that the district had not missed its deadline, and in fact has until next week to file a response to the petition.
Justin Barbetta, of the Montgomery County law firm of Wisler Pearlstine, stated in a motion filed on Tuesday night that in accordance with a scheduling order Mahon signed on March 15, the district and the five board members named have until next month to meet Rosica’s demand that they be removed.
Mahon had given the board 20 days from that date to respond, the attorney said, which would be Monday, April 4.
“The order does not indicate a specific date by which the respondents must submit a responsive pleading,” the motion for reconsideration notes. “Moreover (Rosica) electronically served the March 15, 2022 order on (the firm) on March 28, 2022” indicating that the deadline could be even later in April.
Mahon has scheduled a hearing on the district’s motion for reconsideration for Friday. At that time, he could vacate his order removing the board members, or uphold it.
Rosica said that she disagreed with the board’s interpretation of the deadline, even though she acknowledged in a letter delivered to Mahon Monday she that she needed “clarification” on the timing. “It’s not my intention to waste the court’s time if my interpretation is incorrect,” she wrote.
On Tuesday, Superintendent Bob Sokolowski sent an email message to members of the school community addressing Mahon’s ruling and saying that the district’s attorneys were preparing a response.
“While we do not have all of the answers at this time, please be assured that the West Chester Area School District and I remain deeply committed to the mission of educating and inspiring the best in our students,” he wrote. “As many of you who have emailed or spoken with me over this past year know, I strive to connect with each and every member of our community to answer questions and address concerns in a timely manner.
“As soon as additional information is available to share, our students, families, and community will be updated,” he said. A spokeswoman for the district said members of the school board would not comment.
In his order Tuesday, Mahon also gave both Rosica and the school district seven days to provide him with a list of proposed replacements for the board members named in her petition — board President Sue Tiernan, Joyce Chester, Kate Shaw, Karen Herrmann and Daryl Durnell. Chester and Durnell were elected as Democrats in 2021 and 2019 respectively, while Tiernan, Herrman and Shaw were elected on both party tickets in 2019.
Mahon would then be the sole person naming the new members, who could form a majority of the nine-person board.
Rosica is a self-described advocate for educationally disadvantaged children, low-income and minority students. She is also the paid executive director for Back to School PA, a political action committee funded by a Bucks County venture capitalist, Paul Merlino, who financially backed a number of school board candidates across the region and state in an effort to oppose future school closings because of the coronavirus pandemic.
A former Democrat, she also ran for West Chester mayor in 2021 as a Libertarian, finishing behind current Mayor Lillian DeBaptiste and former Borough Councilman Eric Lorgus.
In her petition — virtually identical to others filed in the Downingtown Area School District and the Great Valley School District — Rosica contends that board members had violated state law by imposing mask mandates on students in the West Chester Schools, thus harming the children there. Under a little-used state law, school board members can be removed if 10 residents petition the court to do so.
In an interview after she filed the suit in February, Rosica, who is representing herself, said that “parents all over the county have been advocating very strongly with school districts and it has fallen on deaf ears. The school districts are just not responding and not listening, so the only thing we have left to do is to recall the board members. We don’t believe they have the legal authority to (mask the kids).”
In the filing, the petition states school directors are causing children “permanent and irreparable harm due to their fabricating, feigning or intentionally exaggerating or including a medical symptom or disease which results in a potentially harmful medical evaluation or treatment to the child and as such, the (school directors) are to be held accountable.”
Indeed, Mahon is also overseeing the similar petition filed by a Downingtown district resident, Shannon Grady, asking that eight board members there be removed. They include board President Lee Ann Wisdom, Vice President Caryn McCleary Ghrayeb, Jane Bertone Joyce Houghton, Audrey Blust, Mindy Ross, Madhu Gurthy and Margie Miler, a Uwchlan Republican who was supported by many conservatives in the district. In that case, in another order signed Tuesday, he gave the district 20 days to respond to the petition.
Grady, of West Pikeland, is a frequent attender at Downingtown board meetings and a critic of the handling of the pandemic by the Chester County Health Department.
Mahon noted in his Tuesday order that he had been alerted to the district’s alleged failure to respond in time to the petition by a motion for default judgement that Rosica filed last week.
In recent months, the West Chester board has seen myriad debates over issues ranging from the COVID-19 restrictions, the alleged teaching of Critical Race Theory, and gender identifications in schools. On Monday, it approved two books associated with LGBTQ issues among young people for inclusion in the district high school libraries.
A parent who is a member of a newly organized group meant to support the board and its members — Together for Public Schools — expressed dismay at Mahon’s ruling and distrust of the motives behind it.
“A lot of the community who have not been following this issue feel like they’ve been blindsided and didn’t know this was coming,” said Shannon Bruno of East Bradford. “We all thought that (the removal petition) was unlikely to go anywhere.