Legislators grill state secretaries of health, education
State legislators questioned the state secretaries of health and education to clarify if the guidance from their departments was a mandate that must be legally followed. The legislators argued that school districts are scared to not follow reopening recommendations from the Wolf administration.
The questions came during a hearing with the state’s senate and house education committee on school reopenings Wednesday.
Citing the possibility of districts facing legal liability if they choose to go against the guidance of the administration and open their doors to in-person instruction, Rep. Andy Diniman, D-Chester, questioned Dr. Rachel Levine, secretary of the department of health and Secretary Pedro Rivera, from the department of education, to explain.
“You know I keep hearing the expression, we are simply giving guidance or recommendations,” Diniman said.
Diniman asserted that school superintendents that he has spoken with have expressed concerns about deciding not to follow the guidance. He stated he was told that because of issues of liability and insurance concerns, the districts were hesitant about not following the state’s recommendations.
“Is it not true that what you say is a recommendation, ends up being a mandate because school districts are afraid of being sued and taxpayers losing millions of dollars,” Diniman asked the secretaries.
Referring to the early days of the school shutdowns in March, Rivera told Diniman that at that time school districts had asked for guidance. He noted that what districts wanted was dependent on their unique situations.
“One of the greatest challenges…has been depending on who we were speaking to, where they were located You know what the data and the conditions were in that community that drove more than anything else the type of guidance they wanted to see from the Department of Education,” Rivera said.
Diniman argued that the school districts were afraid to veer from the recommendations issued by the state for fear of financial consequences, to which Levine countered that county and municipal health departments, which are more attuned to what is happening in a locality, can also issue their own recommendations.
“They don’t have to follow mine,” Levine stated.
Several of the legislators questioned the guidelines that had come out over the summer for school districts to implement.
“When are we going to start trusting our local school districts and stop issuing recommendations that are essentially mandates that leave them more confused than before they were issued, or that you’re not going to give another recommendation next week or two days from now that completely leads to the upheaval of our schools,” Sen. Wayne Langerholc, R-Bedford, Cambria and Clearfield, asked Levine.
Again, Levine pointed out that the districts had requested the information. She also noted that the state’s recommendations are based on data from the White House task force in terms of low, moderate and substantial community spread.
“And we did that at their request,” she reiterated.
“As the governor has said, these are recommendations. These are not mandates, there is local control,” she said, adding that superintendents and local school boards are free to make their own decisions.
Focusing again on the guidelines that the Department of Health has issued, Rep. Curt Sonney, R-Erie, asked Levine what she expects will happen when schools do reopen.
“You know you’ve laid out all these guidelines. We have all been practicing social distancing and wearing masks. So, none of this is new to the population,” Sonney said.
“You set up the guidelines for our districts to follow… so what do you think is going to happen starts. Do you expect the spread to be contained? Do you expect that we’re going to see an uptick and that are schools are going to be forced to close,” he asked Levine.
Noting that COVID-19 is a new virus, she told Sonney that she only knows what has happened when schools opened in other states.
“If students do not wear masks, if students are not social distanced. If students do not wash their hands and use hand sanitizer… we will see more of a strain of COVID-19 than if the recommendations are followed,” Levine stated