Three Pennsylvania school districts are looking to join a lawsuit seeking to enjoin the state's school mask mandate, one in which one Butler County school and six county parents are plaintiffs.

Attorneys working with the seven Butler County plaintiffs filed a motion Friday in Commonwealth Court to add Chestnut Ridge, Penncrest and West York school districts — of Bedford, Crawford and York counties, respectively — as parties to the lawsuit. All three districts' boards of directors voted to join the legal action.

If the motion were approved, they would join state Reps. Jake Corman, R-34th, and Jesse Topper, R-78th, both of whom serve in the state General Assembly but sue as parents and not as officials, as well as Calvary Baptist Church in Butler, Hillcrest Christian Academy in Bethel Park and eight parents of school children.

The lawsuit challenges acting secretary of health Alison Beam's order mandating masking in schools statewide. Beam's order, the suit alleges, violates the state's regulation-promulgating laws, which would have required that the health department follow a specific sequence of steps to implement the order.

In a Sept. 8 response to the parents' and schools' application for preliminary injunction, the state argues, citing an earlier case from Allegheny County, the rule-making procedures “were not applicable to the COVID-19” control orders.

“Simply put, to the extent that (the parents and schools) believe a separate rule or regulation is required to implement a control measure, they are incorrect,” the answer states in part.

Tom King, a Butler attorney with Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham who serves as lead attorney on the case, said he hopes the three newcomers are just the beginning.

“We are delighted that these school districts have voted to join our lawsuit,” King said in a news release. “Parents all over the state are rightly outraged by the Wolf administration's blatantly unconstitutional power grab, and we hope other school districts decide to join this case as it progresses.”