CRANBERRY TWP — A Seneca Valley School District parent of four asked the state’s Commonwealth Court to rule that individual school districts may not mandate masks.

In a lawsuit filed Feb. 8, eight parents of Pennsylvania schoolchildren argue that individual school districts cannot require face coverings in school buildings, including one parent — identified only by the initials “E.M.” — of four Seneca Valley students.

The lawsuit asks the court to declare that “public school districts ... lack the independent legal authority to require students to wear masks in school,” and that the state secretary of education misinterpreted Pennsylvania law in informing school districts they could mandate face coverings.

E.M., who is identified as a parent of children identified only as L.M., L.M., Q.M. and F.M., alleges Seneca Valley’s soon-to-be defunct masking requirement has negatively affected all four children. As of Monday, the district will no longer have a mask mandate after the school board voted Monday to repeal it.

“As a result of the district’s mask requirement and aggressive enforcement, the ‘M’ children have missed multiple days of school due to depression and anxiety caused by the district’s policy and enforcement,” the lawsuit alleges.

Seneca Valley spokeswoman Linda Andreassi said the district has no comment on the lawsuit.

Allege physical, mental effects

The lawsuit specifically argues Seneca Valley’s masking requirement has physically, mentally and socially affected E.M.’s daughter, F.M. The daughter, the suit alleges, “experienced headaches and anxiety” as a result of the mask requirement, and while she “obtained a mask exemption,” she was forced to change seats in the classroom, isolating “her from her circle of friends and peers.”

E.M.’s other three children, the lawsuit alleges, have not sought an exemption from the mask requirement “due to potential bullying by teachers and students.”

“Specifically, L.M., L.M. and Q.M. have witnessed teachers punishing students as a result not wearing masks properly (sic), and each child has been reprimanded for not wearing masks correctly on multiple occasions,” the suit states.

Children of the other seven parents who filed the suit attend school districts across the state, all of which, the suit alleges, have implemented their own masking policies. Those school districts include Pennsbury in Bucks County; Fox Chapel Area in northern Allegheny County; Stroudsburg Area in Monroe County; Parkland in Lehigh County; and Carlynton in Allegheny County.

Noe Ortega, the state’s education secretary, also is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, the eight parents argue Ortega misinterpreted state law when, on Nov. 8 and Dec. 10, he told districts they would “be able to implement mitigation efforts at the local level,” including by requiring masks.

The parents argue that school districts do not have the inherent power to require masks, saying the Department of Education has not promulgated a regulation conferring to districts the power to mandate masks. Additionally, the lawsuit alleges, the state Legislature hasn’t granted school districts “with any specific legal authority to require students to wear face masks.”

Neither the state’s Public School Code nor regulations from the Department of Education, the lawsuit alleges, explicitly grants the power to school districts to require masks. As such, the parents argue in the suit, districts may not make such a mandate.