Cobb County School District responds to federal mask lawsuit

Cobb school district responds mask lawsuit — *John Floresta, Cobb County School District Chief Accountability and Strategy Officer*

The Cobb County School District is asking the federal courts to reject a lawsuit filed against it by parents of medically fragile students.

The district’s response, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia, accuses the plaintiffs of inviting the legal system “to weigh in on matters of local politics by second-guessing the wisdom of CCSD’s COVID-19 mask policy.”

The plaintiffs also are seeking a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to impose a mask mandate, and a hearing will take place on that matter Friday morning.

The four parents have asserted in their lawsuit that their children are not able to get an appropriate in-person education due to the district’s masks-optional policy, which Superintendent Chris Ragsdale vigorously defended in September.

They are suing under provisions of the federal Americans With Disabilities Act.

From the introduction to the district’s response (which you can read in full here):

“Though reasonable minds might disagree over whether schools should mandate masks, school districts have exclusive domain over these operational decisions. CCSD has made its safety decisions based on verified public health data, scientific guidance, and consideration of the needs of all students. It has chosen what it believes is right for Cobb County. Plaintiffs’ request for a TRO and preliminary injunction is just the latest attempt by one side of the political debate to usurp a school district’s operational autonomy over COVID-19 policy.”

Furthermore, the district said it has “reasonably accommodated” the disabilities of the affected students with “its numerous other pandemic safety measures, robust virtual offerings and individualized supports.”

The response also claims that the plaintiffs cannot show “irreparable harm because they are simply complaining about not receiving their preferred educational services—not a deprivation of access to education altogether.”

In a separate declaration, John Floresta, the district’s Chief Accountability and Strategy Officer, stressed that “the District’s position is not ‘anti-mask.’ The District strongly recommends wearing a mask. The District simply leaves the final decision on whether to wear one to the individual.”

In its reply to the district’s response, the plaintiffs contend (you can read it here) that “while the District claims that it has relied on verified public health data and scientific guidance to inform its recent decisions, it only cites a widely discredited pseudoscientist, whose opinions have been denounced by the public health and medical community.”

That’s a reference to Jay Bhattacharya, a former professor at the Stanford University medical school who currently teaches health policy there, and who is a high-profile skeptic of some COVID-19 mitigation, including masking school children.

In his declaration for the Cobb school district (you can read it here), he provided a copy of his recent report, “Scientific Evidence on COVID, Children and Mask Mandates” that concludes by saying “there is no scientific or medical reason to require masking school children.”

Cobb is one of the few school districts in metro Atlanta that does not have a mask mandate, something it had last year. Marietta City Schools announced Thursday that it was returning to a masks-optional policy, after requiring them in recent weeks.

The Cobb plaintiffs, who are being represented by two local attorneys and the Southern Poverty Law Center, have assembled documents from local and nationally known public health figures as well.

They include Dr. Janet Memark, director of Cobb and Douglas Public Health, who has urged schools to follow current U.S. Centers for Disease Control guidance for universal masking in schools.

She reiterated that guidance in her declaration, saying that “CDPH has consistently advised the Cobb County School District that the use of masks is one of the primary intervention strategies to help control the spread of COVID-19. This remains CPDH’s recommendation today.”

The Cobb school district maintains in its response that it “has developed robust COVID-19 response and intervention strategies based on guidance from public health agencies.”

The district also claims in its response that “Cobb County school-aged children had lower rates of infection than two of its mask-mandated neighboring counties during the September peak, and it often had the same or lower rates of infection than the five neighboring mask-mandated counties since the start of the 2021-2022 school year.”

The plaintiffs’ attorneys included a recent e-mail by Cobb school board member David Banks sent to his East Cobb constituents urging people not to get the COVID-19 vaccine, with a message saying that the government is “intentionally killing its citizens.”

The Cobb school district was sued in April by parents opposed to the district’s mask mandate at the time.

The suit was dropped when Superintendent Chris Ragsdale announced in May that there would be a masks-optional policy for the 2021-22 school year.