The lone Palmerton Area School District director to vote against having all students attend classes virtually starting Dec. 1 is continuing to advocate his position on social media.

Earl Paules posted two videos to Facebook this week on his “Paules Motorsports” page, supporting the continuation of keeping students in school.

“Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been behind the kids going back to school 100%,” Paules said in a video. “Our kids need an education and the only way they are going to get it is if they are in school. There are a lot of smart people here in this district. We have to figure out a way to do this.”

Superintendent Dr. Jodi Frankelli made the recommendation to the board on Tuesday to move all students to the virtual learning model after Carbon County had its second week with “substantial” community COVID-19 transmission.

"Our COVID-19 numbers in the community have skyrocketed,” Frankelli said. “We have always stood firm with our mission to follow the guidance provided to us by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Department of Education. Carbon County has been at the substantial level of community transition for two weeks now and the recommendation that comes with that is a full remote learning model.”

While Palmerton is using a full virtual learning model, there will be no sports practices or games. Beginning with the reporting period of Jan. 1-7, Carbon County will need to have, at worst, a moderate level of community COVID-19 transmission for three out of four weeks before Palmerton would move out of the full remote learning model.

“Once you shut down, it is so hard to get back in school again,” Paules said. “If all of the fall sports athletes had to follow a certain safety protocol, why can’t we step up the same protocol in the school for the students. It should be up to the parents to either send their child to school or not send their child to school. This virus gave too much power to people who shouldn’t have it.”

Parents spoke out against the decision during Tuesday’s board meeting and again on social media throughout the week.

A protest is scheduled for Saturday in the Palmerton Borough Park at 1:30 p.m. Participants should wear masks.

“Our children need to be back in school,” organizer Stephanie White said in announcing the event. “We need to tell the school board their recent vote does not reflect the will of the people of Palmerton.”

According to the event announcement, parents are asking that any post-Thanksgiving switch to virtual learning should not exceed more than one extra week added to Thanksgiving vacation. They are also asking for winter sports to be allowed to begin no later than Dec 1, even if the district is still in virtual learning.

“Palmerton’s recent decisions makes it an outlier among area school districts,” White wrote in the event announcement. “Many area school districts have had far more COVID-19 cases than Palmerton. When cases began to occur too frequently, they went virtual for a week or two to break the chain of transmission, and then returned to in person education. Only Palmerton has announced a move to virtual learning with no firm exit date. Only Palmerton has canceled winter sports.”

Another Palmerton parent has also started a petition on change.org to continue the hybrid model and allow all extracurricular activities. View the petition at https://bit.ly/2UMnb3y