The Tamaqua Area School District is unique among the nearly 500 districts in Pennsylvania. It is the only one which received what can be essentially called a cease-and-desist order from the state Education Department, scolding board members and urging them to start complying with a state Health Department ruling that requires students and school personnel to be masked.

In its apparent wisdom of the medical implications of this decision, the school board voted 5-2 at a special meeting early this month, essentially thumbing its nose at Gov. Tom Wolf and the state Health Department.

This brought the sternly worded letter from state Education Secretary Noe Ortega to board members last week warning them that they could face fines, lawsuits, liability insurance problems and possibly even loss of federal funds.

Do board members realize what this means? Let’s say the board is sued by a parent whose child contracts COVID-19 because of Tamaqua’s voluntary masking policy which is in violation of the state order.

It is likely that the district’s insurance carrier will not cover board members because of their noncompliance with mandated state safety regulations.

In such an instance, will board members dig into their own pockets to defend themselves against such a lawsuit, or will they try to stick the taxpayers with the bill? I suspect that even a GoFundMe campaign would not be out of the question.

I verified that the Tamaqua board is the only one in the state so far to have received such a letter.

Board President Larry Wittig told the Times News that he and his colleagues will discuss the state’s letter at a board meeting next Tuesday.

In the letter, which directly speaks to each Tamaqua board member, Ortega said, “Failure to implement and follow the control measures under the order subjects a person, which includes you as a member of the governing board, to the penalty provisions of the Disease Prevention and Control Law of 1955. A violation occurs each day there is a violation and may be charged for each student or staff member attending the school,” Ortega said,

If the state follows through, who would pay for these “fines,” board members or the Tamaqua district taxpayers?

“Please be aware that this letter serves as official notice to you that failure to comply with the mask order is a violation of law and imparts knowledge of both the applicable law and your organization’s noncompliance,” Ortega’s letter continued.

In his letter, Ortega refers to recent studies which, he said, “have clearly shown that mask-wearing in schools has contributed to lower levels of COVID-19 transmission among students and staff and allowed for continued in-person school attendance.”

He also said that further research supports that mask-wearing has “no significant adverse health effects for wearers.”

Ortega’s letter also has a message to superintendents of schools, who find themselves between a rock and a hard place. School boards, such as Tamaqua’s, put them in an awkward position. They must decide: “Who is my master?”

They must wrestle with the question of whether to obey the state mandate or their boss, those who hired them. Clearly, this is a no-win situation for these education professionals who never signed up for this kind of awkward controversy.

Ortega’s letter addresses this conundrum. Noting that the department has received inquiries regarding how administrators and teachers should address school boards who direct them to violate the law, Ortega said these individuals “may be entitled to protection under the state’s Whistleblower Law.”

There are many parents and students in the Tamaqua district and elsewhere who are applauding the school board’s defiant hard-line stance. The issue is being cast as a matter of freedom of choice. They and the board insist that the state has no business sticking its nose into what they believe is a local decision-making matter parents and local officials.

All well and good, but where does this stop? Our system doesn’t work this way. Individuals and organizations do not get to pick and choose which laws to obey and which to ignore. That’s a prescription for chaos.

The Pennsylvania General Assembly is returning to session early this month to deal with legislation that will take on the state’s masking edict. There also are lawsuits challenging the governor’s and health secretary’s decision.

These are acceptable possible legal recourse actions to undo the mandate, but to act as the Tamaqua district did, to say, “Well, we don’t like this decision, so we’re not going to abide by it,” I have to ask: What kind of message does this send to students and law-abiding citizens in the district?

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.