After a group of parents sued Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) for forcing students to continue wearing masks despite Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) issuing an executive order banning that practice, LCPS declined to comment on the situation.
Wayde B. Byard, LCPS’ public information officer, told The Virginia Star Thursday that the only comment he could offer was already made by Superintendent Scott Ziegler.
“The decision of whether to wear a mask or not is deeply personal for many families; we ask that you respect the decision of others. No one should be made to feel uncomfortable about their choice,” Superintendent Ziegler said after the Thursday morning decision.
As of Thursday, LCPS’ mask mandate had been dropped, and students were free to return to class without masks.
The order came just hours after Youngkin signed a bill into law banning mask mandates in schools.
He had previously issued an executive order declaring the same, but LCPS defied that order, leading to the lawsuit.
The defiance caused controversy, as the school sought remedies for students who refused to continue wearing masks after Youngkin’s executive order.
The school vowed to suspend students who refused to wear masks, but also considered charging them with trespassing and having them arrested.
The head of school security, John Clark, directed administrators to seek warrants for the arrests of unmasked students.
“If you determine that an individual should be trespassed, then a school admin representative, in conjunction with S&S Coordinator Rich Thomas, will proceed to the magistrate to swear out a trespass summons/warrant,” Clark said in an early February email to administrators. “School admin will meet Rich Thomas at the Safety & Security office and then proceed to the magistrate, which is located next to our office.”
LCPS told The Virginia Star at the time that no students had been arrested for failing to comply with the mask mandate.
It is unclear how or even if the lawsuit against the school will proceed, now that the law banning masks has gone into effect, superseding Youngkin’s previous executive order.
LCPS has been at the center of controversy over mask mandates and social justice policies since last summer.
In the midst of protests over mask mandates, news came to light that a transgender biological male has raped a high school girl in an LCPS high school bathroom. That scandal was covered up by the Loudoun County School Board (LCSB) and Ziegler, who lied to parents when he said there had never been an instance of sexual abuse stemming from the school’s transgender bathroom policies.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
