Mask mandates and meeting venues remain issues for some Unionville-Chadds Ford School District parents. The latest round of angry comments — charging the board is disrespectful to parents — came during the Nov. 15 board meeting that was changed at the last minute from an in-person session to a Zoom meeting.

Superintendent of Schools John Sanville said the decision was made because some residents didn’t want to wear masks during the meeting.

“Regardless of whether you agree or not with masking…the reality is, at this point in time, as a school district in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, we’re required to enforce [the masking mandate]. We had some folks who did not want to comply. In the interest in keeping everyone safe, in the interest of not violating the mask order, and in the interest of not being confrontational, and rather than get into that nasty confrontation, we wanted to respect people’s positions, and we retreated to a Zoom-style meeting.”

He later commented on what may or may not happen regarding the mask mandate. Sanville said Gov. Tom Wolf announced that the current masking order would expire on Jan. 17, but there are court cases pending on who has the authority to make such orders. One such case is scheduled for later this month.

Whichever way that case goes, Sanville said, “We’ll be left with a local decision…It’s pretty clear that the General Assembly believes that the [masking] decision is best left locally.”

He also said the Health and Safety Committee will meet again in December and that there will be a community conversation in January. “We’ll move forward from that,” he said.

His comments were followed by those of School Board Director John Murphy who said the U-CF masking policy was in response to the health department.

“What really drove our Health and Safety Plan was the quarantine rules imposed by the Chester County Health Department. Based on those rules, if children wore masks, there would be no minimal quarantine requirements. Those are the governing rules that govern our philosophy toward masking,” Murphy said.

“I would encourage parents in the community who feel strongly against masking, as I fully agree with you, “Murphy continued, “to please reach out to the Chester County Health Department and find out if they plan to continue the quarantine rules for students after they get vaccinated because, as long as those rules remain in effect I think the prudent thing to do is continue masking so that students aren’t spending 14 days in quarantine at home.”

During the two public comment periods, 10 residents expressed their concerns, two of which were supportive of the board’s decisions.

Brian Schartz, from Chadds Ford Township, said he prefers live in-person meetings but the sudden change from a live meeting to a virtual meeting was the fault of residents, not the board.

“Some of our residents cannot or will not play by the rules,” he said of those who would not wear masks inside the high school library where the meeting was to be held. He said they talk about their freedom but ignore their responsibilities.

He also said he is “in complete support of the Health and Safety Plan” that was put in place before the start of the current school year. “It struck the right balance between risk and reward.”

Another Chadds Ford resident, Rob Gurnee, phoned in to the meeting to say he supports the board and its decisions “for their actions during this very difficult time. I appreciate you holding to your plan, as the previous caller enunciated, and your principles. I’m grateful that you have not shirked responsibilities in the face of opposition that sometimes borders on bullying. I know this is not something you signed up for this duty but I’m glad you’re the ones doing it. We appreciate your efforts.”

The next resident to speak was John Dunn of East Marlborough Township who immediately said the previous two callers — Schartz and Gurnee — were “plants or friends of the board.”

“That’s fine. You’re entitled to your opinion, but in all honesty, to say that the board didn’t shirk their responsibilities is just false. They’ve shirked their responsibilities at every turn as witnessed by what when on tonight, turning away from all the parents who wanted to speak. It’s OK of you don’t want to hear other people’s opinions elsewhere, but this is our school district and parents should be allowed to speak their minds.”

Dunn went on to challenge the claim that board members didn’t “sign up for this,” saying that’s exactly what they signed up for.

“They’re specifically allocated to a specific area within each district where there are parents they’re supposed to represent. So, to say they didn’t ask for it is simply not true. It’s false. Those are plants, asked by the board to call in,” he said.

But Dunn also challenged board-member comments.

“I wish the board would stop pretending they’re interested in hearing the public comments. You are not interested. This is evidenced by the fact that you’ve already got draconian rules in place that put parents on a three-minute egg timer. You interrupt people who are asking to make legitimate comments, yet you go on endlessly about your trivial accomplishments that you’ve each done while you’re in the actual board meeting that no one cares about.

“And now tonight, my belief is that you’re going to try to impose even more restrictive policies to prevent parents from even further making any comments in these kinds of board meetings, which is a gross violation of all of our rights.”

Mike Cain, of Pocopson Township, expressed concern about the meeting being moved to Zoom at the last minute.

“I want to tell the presiding officer [Board President Jeff Hellrung] that what took place tonight was completely disrespectful to every parent that was in attendance at the school board meeting. I scrambled to get there on time, had a statement prepared, had to make arrangements for someone to watch my kids, and I got there with my mask on, no intent of being disrespectful or confrontational with anyone. And the presiding officer decides to up and end the meeting before it even began.”

He went on to say the man without the mask could have been asked to leave. Dunn then turned on Hellrung a second time saying, “You did not observe reasonable decorum with the way you just disrespectfully ended that meeting.”

East Marlborough Township resident Bill Saylor read a letter from his 12-year-old daughter relating to her depression over being forced to wear a mask from the time she gets on the bus to school until she gets taken home, with the only exception being lunchtime.

“I never thought I would have to suffocate in a stupid mask all day since kids in the U.S. have a survival rate of 99.99 percent. Of course, I still have to wear a mask all day long.” Saylor read from his daughter’s letter.

Lori Peters, from Birmingham Township, said the board is in violation of the Sunshine Act by continuing to hold Zoom meetings even after the COVID emergency order — which allowed the virtual sessions — was lifted. She said she invited board members to sit in on a webinar with the state’s Office of Open Records.

“The act stated that this was only valid until the act was lifted or terminated and that was done in June,” Peters said. “The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records confirmed for me that their position is the Sunshine Act requires the physical presence of parents be allowed at school board meetings.

“Last week,” she continued,” you gave a hostile opening speech to the parents who were delighted to finally come to speak to the board in person, wherein rather than welcoming us to the first in-person meeting since August, you sternly warned us that you must be allowed to conduct your work without interruption and threatened us that you would walkout at the slightest provocation. It was unnecessary and offensive.”

Peters went on to say that there were two people at the Nov. 15 meeting who weren’t wearing masks right away.  One, she said, she spoke to and learned that he had a medical exemption, but the board never bothered to find out why he wasn’t masked.