Tamaqua Area School District students will wear masks on the bus to start the school year.

A motion to amend the Tamaqua Area School District’s health and safety plan to include a school bus mask mandate was approved at Tuesday night’s school board meeting.

The decision came only a week after the board’s workshop committee meeting, when board President Larry Wittig spearheaded a conversation regarding optional mask wearing on the school bus.

Last week, some members were indifferent about the idea of optional masks on the bus. Others agreed with Wittig that it should be a personal choice for parents, while no board member was completely against optional masks.

Vice President Nicholas Boyle concurred with Wittig last week.

“I agree with you, what’s the point? You’re absolutely right,” Boyle added during the committee meeting.

But there were differences in opinion Tuesday, as the majority ruled in favor of a school bus mask mandate by a slim 4-3 vote.

Wittig stuck to his guns and voted against the school bus mask mandate.

“It’s all in this control-crazy atmosphere with no evidence that these little flimsy stupid masks work one way or the other,” Wittig said.

“I don’t want kids to get sick, I don’t want anybody to get sick - let alone die. But some of the natural immunity that’s coming from asymptomatic transmission and things like that - nobody talks about the statistics - the statistics remarkably are that more people in the aggregate died from the flu in these age categories.”

During Tuesday’s roll-call vote, Boyle, Mark Rother, Melanie Dillman and Bryan Miller were in favor of masks on the bus. Voting alongside Wittig against the new policy were board members Trina Schellhammer and Thomas Bartasavage. Daniel Schoener and Tom Rottet did not attend the meeting.

“At the end of the day we are telling parents that they have no discretion with respect to masking their 5-year-old or 6-year-old on buses, which is absurd, in my opinion - and obviously (the opinion of) two other people,” Wittig said.

“I just think there’s an overreach that this will continue, because in my opinion, if we go two months with the masks they’ll say, see, it worked. And if everybody gets infected with the mask, they’ll say we have to keep them on longer.”

Cathy Miorelli M.S.N., R.N., a longtime TASD school nurse at the secondary level, expressed many concerns during the public comment portion of the meeting.

“Last year, during the school year, there were days when I would come in and I would spend the day on the phone doing contract tracing,” said Miorelli.

“If masks are off kids, and they’re not vaccinated, and they’re less than 6 feet away, they’re going to be considered a close contact. In a sense, if we’re not masking in a school setting, we’re setting up for a lot more close contacts and quarantines.”

Masks are still optional for students in school. Tamaqua’s first day is set for Aug. 25.