Five parents with students in the Cobb County School District have filed a lawsuit against the district’s face mask mandate.
The suit, filed April 9 in Cobb Superior Court, claims that the district’s mandate, which was announced before the start of the current school year, “has arbitrarily and capriciously segregated the student population.”
The mandate, which applies to all students, teachers and other staff working on school campuses, has effectively created two “separate, but unequal” learning environments, one in-person, and one virtual, according to the lawsuit.
The suit, which names Superintendent Chris Ragsdale and the seven members of the Cobb County Board of Education as defendants, also alleges that the district’s contact tracing procedures are an invasion of privacy and violate federal health privacy laws.
The plaintiffs—listed as Caryn Sonderman, Matt Gill, Andrei Marcu, Gretchen Brochard and Erin White—are seeking a temporary restraining order against the mandate and a hearing has been scheduled for Tuesday at 11 a.m. before Senior Presiding Judge James Bodiford in Cobb Superior Court.
Ragsdale announced the mask mandate last July, after initially saying masks would be “highly recommended.”
The plaintiffs claim that masks don’t work, saying it’s a “scientifically baseless ‘solution’ that is pure political theater and harms children in its own way.”
Affidavits signed by the plaintiffs claim their children have been adversely affected by having to wear masks when attending classes in-person.
They include a student at Walton High School whom, the lawsuit claims, has been able to attend classes on campus only a couple weeks this school year. The masks constrict the breathing of the student, who has ADHD.
Another student at Wheeler High School has found it “difficult to breathe” wearing a mask throughout the school day and “has developed cynicism at 15 years old” and distrust of adults at the school.
A kindergarten student at Timber Ridge Elementary School also has complained of not being able to breathe, according to a parental affidavit filed with the lawsuit.
The lawsuit is being filed with about a month left in the 2020-21 school year.
The Cobb school year began all-virtual in August due to high COVID-19 case figures, which prompted protests by parents. An incremental classroom return began in October.
The final days of the fall semester also went all-online in November with another case surge, but the spring semester began in hybrid fashion in January.
Some teachers and parents pleaded for an all-virtual return after three Cobb school teachers died in December and January from COVID-19.
More recently, some Cobb parents have been speaking out against the mask mandate, including the mother of four students in East Cobb schools who organized the protest against the all-virtual start to the school year.
Amy Henry told the school board last month that “we’re putting on a show and denying our children in the process” by requiring students who attend classes in person to wear masks at all times.
“They need to have a normal childhood,” she said. “We’re teaching them that they’re dirty. We’re creating a fearful environment that for these kids cannot be normal.”
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