DV Journal

With the back and forth from the CDC on which masks are truly helpful in slowing the spread of the COVID-19 virus, it’s easy to worry about the safety of our children. Pennsylvania has 500 school districts, and some still require students to wear their masks indoors while others move to make masks optional.

Some fear that continued masking mandates might spark mental health conditions for students. Still, Inna Leiter, Psy.D., child and adolescent psychologist and director of the Center for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy told Delaware Valley Journal that isn’t necessarily the case.

Inna Leiter

“I think that since we’ve had to start masking we have undoubtedly seen an increase in anxiety,” Leiter said. “But so many other changes have come along with that, including parents being more stressed and intermittent quarantines, that it’s really hard to point to a causal relationship between masking and any specific mental health issues.”

Leiter mentions many contributing factors are causing students stress and anxiety during the pandemic. One is the uncertainty surrounding guidelines.

“What I have seen anxiety about specifically in my clinical practice is that it’s really unclear what the guidelines are regarding safety and how to apply them consistently,” Leiter said. “Some parents are more strict, some parents are less strict, and so sometimes it can cause anxiety in kids trying to fit in if their parents are really strict. If they’re hanging out with their friends and their friends aren’t wearing a mask but their mom won’t let them go anywhere unless they’re wearing a mask. Sometimes they’re the only ones wearing a mask. That can cause some stress. I don’t know if that’ll turn into an anxiety disorder but it’s just an added social stressor of navigating when to wear the mask.”

Nicole Lombardi, the owner of Speech Matters, LLC, told DVJ it is also difficult to say if masks harm children’s ability to speak.

“While we cannot say definitively whether masks are inhibiting kids from learning to talk, we can absolutely see some negative impacts of masking,” Lombardi said. “Masking makes it difficult for our little ones acquiring language to see our faces, so they’re limited to only hearing sounds and words, which sometimes isn’t enough in isolation. Additionally, masking has impacted not only young ones learning language but also those who have already acquired language and are addressing the nuances of language in everyday communications.”

Nicole Lombardi

In addition to language skills, Lombardi has noticed masking impacts children’s social skills.

“Masking has negatively impacted children addressing social skills due to the inability to read a person’s facial expressions and nonverbal cues,” Lombardi explained. “Do I have a valid answer to this? No. But, I can say that the number of 1-2-year-olds who have joined our Speech Matters community since the implementation of masking has more than doubled from years prior to 2020.”

Lombardi said masking is n0t much of an issue when it comes to older students unless they are already seeing a speech therapist.

“From my purview, I do not see masking for older students learning new terms as an issue,” Lombardi said. “I do see it as an issue for older kids who are (a) working on speech sound production skills (perhaps they make an F for a TH sound, like “bad” for “bath”). As I mentioned, I have seen great impact of masks on older students working on their social language skills, particularly in reading nonverbal social cues (facial expressions are often key to reading a social situation).”

Lombardi added rapport is a big part of therapy in any specialty, and masks can have a negative impact on children building that rapport with their speech therapists.

“Masks make it difficult to feel that you truly know a child, their families and caregivers, and vice versa,” Lombardi said. “It’s not immediately obvious, but it is rather jarring to think that you could show a picture of three women without masks to a child who has been working with one of them for several months and the child would not be able to choose which woman was his or her therapist. It is both sad and concerning, thinking about the impact masks have had on rapport building.”

When asked if there was anything parents could do to help their children, Lombardi’s answer was simple.

“Model, model, model,” she said. “Parents are the face of therapy when with their child in a private and maskless setting. We as therapists will need to rely on you to model speech sounds, language skills, and social interpretation/use of language at home and in the community. While therapists and children can wear clear masks or masks with windows, there is still a barrier to the child’s direct access to facial cues. It is also helpful to monitor your child’s progress at home and report back. Share videos of your child working on their speech and language skills at home, maskless, so therapists are able to see what is occurring behind the mask and provide helpful feedback for practice and improvements.”

It is difficult to say how masks will impact children long-term, and that uncertainty can add to the growing list of stressors for parents and their children.

“Uncertainty is really hard for people,” Leiter said. “For people with anxiety, uncertainty is like an Achilles heel. Uncertainty is the thing that anxiety latches onto. So, in this era of uncertainty, it makes sense that people are struggling with anxiety. Is it caused by masks? I can’t say that but the uncertainty about masks is likely to contribute to the pool of uncertainty that we’re all facing.”

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“There is a Chinese curse which says ‘May he live in interesting times.’ Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty, but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind,” Robert F. Kennedy said in 1966.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic reached our shores, the country and the Delaware Valley have been living in “interesting times,” to say the least. Everything from shopping to education to sports has been seen through the lens of COVID, and whether it might lead one to contract it or would mitigate the virus.

Local and state governments collected numbers and issued mandates. Schools were locked down, reopened, and some locked down again. One of the biggest political stories the Delaware Valley Journal covered in 2021 was the rise of parent power. Parents objected to COVID lockdowns and masks at school board meetings, parents opposed to Critical Race Theory, and shocked parents asking school boards to remove what they deem as pornographic books from school libraries, along with school boards limiting parents’ free speech rights.

This also gave rise to election victories for school board candidates who promised not to shut down schools again and the successful statewide political strategy of Back to School PA PAC, which gave about $700,000 to back those candidates’ campaigns.

Another big story this year is crime and violence in Philadelphia, arguably driven by progressive prosecution—or lack thereof—by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office headed by DA Larry Krasner, who was re-elected in November. As of this writing, 555 people were victims of homicide in Philadelphia in 2021—a horrific new record.

At the state government level, voters sent a clear message to Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf in May when they approved ballot initiatives limiting his emergency powers. It was a also the year when amazing numbers of Republican candidates began vying for the governor’s seat in the 2022 primary, along with similarly large  fields of hopefuls of both parties seeking the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Pat Toomey. The Senate race, which may tip the balance of the Senate, could become one of the most closely-watched political contests in the U.S.

The 2021 election process in some DelVal counties also came under fire as delays, mistakes, and mail-in ballots caused consternation.  That has also been a huge issue nationwide since former President Donald Trump questioned the validity of the election process that resulted in his defeat in the swing states, including Pennsylvania. And a lawsuit was filed against Delaware County officials alleging malfeasance in the handling of the 2020 election there.

Another statewide issue in the DelVal Journal was Wolf’s unilateral plunge into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a move that will undoubtedly limit Pennsylvania’s job growth and drive up energy costs for businesses and residents.

RGGI is supposed to reduce greenhouse gases by an auction process for power producers and industrial plants in 12 states, which buy credits to offset emissions. But those other RGGI states are not energy producers like Pennsylvania, with its wealth of natural gas.

And we have closely followed the controversy over the $6.1 billion Mariner East II pipeline. Some residents who live in the vicinity of the pipeline along with public officials have fought the pipeline, while overlooking clear benefits from the pipeline for employment, safety over rail or truck transport, and reduced energy costs. Luckily, for the economy of the DelVal region those efforts appear to have failed and the project is on track for completion.

Locally, Hurricane Ida hit some DelVal areas hard with flood damage as streams overflowed their banks while tornadoes pummeled parts of Bucks and Montgomery Counties.

National issues of inflation and supply-side woes also affected the Delaware Valley region as the Biden administration’s energy and regulatory policies began to be felt here.

In Norristown, the DelVal Journal broke a story regarding Norristown Area School Board President Shae Ashe sending sexually suggestive messages on social media to an underage Norristown High School girl. In the wake of those articles, Ashe resigned from the board and, although he was re-elected, did not return to it.

In Delaware County, the new Health Department, promised by Democrats who were elected to a majority in the county council in 2019, is taking shape and expected to open in 2022. It will cost taxpayers an estimated $10 million its first year.

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Restauranteurs in the city of Brotherly Love and the nearby suburbs are digesting the implications of a citywide mandate that requires customers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus in the new year.

Some fear the guidelines give suburban eateries an edge over Philadelphia competitors forced to impose the mandate. Others are more hopeful that the mandate, beginning Jan. 3, could actually boost business for Philadelphia restaurants by making concerned potential customers feel more comfortable dining out.

“Our customers are already saying …. ‘Well, we’re just going to go to Bucks County,’” Nancy Morozin, co-owner of The Dining Car in Northeast Philadelphia, told WHYY.

The Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association said about 30 percent of their businesses already required customers to show proof they were vaccinated to dine indoors before the mandate was adopted.

That could cut against the notion that they’ll be a great wave of diners hitting up the suburbs once the city’s vaccine mandate goes into effect. For the first two weeks it’s in place, customers also have the option of showing a negative test within the past 24 hours in order to dine in.

One industry watchdog says the vaccine mandate may actually encourage customers who felt unsafe dining to come out of their cocoons.

“The restaurants that were doing this showed that they were just as busy if not busier than places that weren’t” requiring proof, said Ben Fileccia, director of operations and strategy for the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association.

The vaccination mandate is a better option than last year’s lockdowns which forced about one-fifth of Philadelphia restaurants to permanently shut their doors, Fileccia said. However, he acknowledged restaurateurs in the city “are rightfully concerned” after hearing from some venues that host large events who are seeing customers decide to shift those weddings, conferences, and parties elsewhere.

“Right now, if you live in Philly and you’re unvaccinated and don’t have a religious or medical exemption, your option will be to head to the suburbs to enjoy dinner out there,” Fileccia said.

That could change if other municipalities across the state follow suit and adopt similar measures.

The Pennsylvania Municipal League says some locales tried instituting vax mandates or incentive programs for employees to get the jab, but so far it hasn’t fielded a single call from anyone looking to enact its own dining-vax mandate

With more than a million residents, Philadelphia is the state’s only first-class city and may have more legal clout and autonomy to adopt and enforce stricter regulations than smaller municipalities, said John Brenner, executive director designate at the Pennsylvania Municipal League.

“Because of its home-rule charter, it would have some capabilities that other places may not have,” he said. “I’m sure it’s going to come up. There are a lot of questions like that we’re going to have to wrestle with.”

Pennsylvania has suffered more than 1.5 million infections and nearly 36,000 deaths from the coronavirus, according to state data. Of the nearly 7 million people fully vaccinated here, more than 1.2 million people are in Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester Counties, data show.

Eric Nagy, a spokesman for Bucks County, told the Delaware Valley Journal while there may be an appetite for a local vaccine mandate from people “on both issues,” it is “not something” county commissioners are contemplating.

That is reassuring news to people like Tom Darlington, owner of the Great American Pub in Narbeth, who called Philadelphia’s dining-vax mandate “terrible” for owners still recovering from the “irreparable harm” they suffered during the pandemic.

He feels the mandate will cause consternation for businesses negotiating an issue that has divided people along party lines. And, he said, the case could be made that the practice is discriminatory as vaccine hesitancy is higher among certain groups.

“Asking for vaccine cards is basically, in my opinion, the government forcing private industry to police government policy,” he said. “I believe the idea of asking for vaccine cards is so against American ideals. It reminds me of Nazi Germany.”

Darlington understands the argument that requiring diners to show proof they’re vaccinated is no different than some of the other health and sanitary rules and regulations that all eateries in Pennsylvania are already required to follow. But he still believes it comes down to people choosing what’s right for themselves. He mentioned two family members who died shortly after getting vaccinated. He couldn’t be sure whether their deaths were linked to their decisions to get vaccinated.

“Where do you draw the line?” he asked. “COVID is a killer. I’m not downplaying that. There are people who say, ‘Hey listen, I’m vaccinated. I want to go out and enjoy a good time that’s not dangerous to my family.’ … It’s a matter of control, and it all goes back to if you’re going to just mandate it for indoor dining, make it across the board for everything.”

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Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court handed Gov. Tom Wolf yet another setback in his ongoing effort to use the COVID-19 pandemic to expand his power, striking down a mask mandate critics said was clearly beyond his authority.

On Friday, the state’s highest court both affirmed a lower court’s finding that Wolf’s health department lacked the authority to impose a mask mandate and also vacated an order allowing the administration to enforce the mandate during the appeal process.

“Today’s ruling is a victory for parents and communities whose opinions have been ignored by the Wolf administration for far too long,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R-Bellefonte), one of the plaintiffs in the case. “The ruling today is about much more than masks in schools; it is about preventing government overreach in general. The law clearly does not give any governor or any state agency the power to create orders out of thin air in the absence of an emergency declaration and outside the regulatory review process.”

Corman, a GOP candidate for governor, argued that Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam didn’t have the authority to impose the mask mandate without going through the formal regulatory process.

“This ruling means we will not have to deal with even more extreme, unilateral measures from the Wolf administration that devastated our economy last year, including business closures and restrictions,” Corman said.

Elizabeth Rementer, press secretary to Wolf, said, “The administration’s top priority from the beginning of this pandemic has been and remains protecting public health and safety, including students and staff, to ensure in-person learning continues. We are awaiting an opinion on the decision, but the outcome is extremely disappointing. That said, the administration recognizes that many school districts want to ensure a safe and healthy learning environment for students and staff, and we are hopeful they will make appropriate mitigation decisions moving forward.”

“The administration urges school districts to prioritize the health and safety of their students and staff when making mitigation decisions. ​Masking is a proven and simple way to keep kids  in school without interruption and participate in sports and other extra-curricular activities. Universal masking in schools, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend, reduces the risk that entire classrooms will need to quarantine due to a positive COVID-19 case,” she added.

“The administration also continues to urge all eligible Pennsylvanians to get vaccinated, get boosted, and take your children ages 5 and older to get vaccinated. Appointments are available statewide for Pennsylvanians ages 5 and older for their primary series and 16+ for their booster shot. Vaccines are safe, effective, and readily available across Pennsylvania. Visit vaccines.gov to find an appointment,” she said.

This isn’t Wolf’s first defeat in the battle over the reach of the governor’s power.

In May, Pennsylvania voters approved two amendments to the Commonwealth’s constitution restricting the governor’s power to declare and then extend states of emergency. Amendment 1 authorized the General Assembly to terminate an emergency by a majority vote of both houses, as opposed to a two-thirds vote and the governor’s agreement. Amendment 2 limited emergencies to 21 days instead of the previous 90, and allowed mandates to only be extended by the Assembly, not the governor.

And Wolf found himself in political hot water over the arbitrary way he and his administration handed out exemptions to favored businesses during the 2020 lockdown. The GOP-led legislature opened an investigation in response. In September 2020, a federal judge ruled Wolf’s far-reaching lockdown orders were unconstitutional.

Speaker of the House Bryan Cutler (R-Lancaster) and House Majority Leader Rep. Kerry Benninghoff (R-Centre/Mifflin) Friday echoed the GOP message that the real issue isn’t masks, it’s mandates that exceed the governor’s legal powers.

“This debate has never been about the effectiveness of masks in schools, or any other setting. It is about whether or not each branch of our state government and the officials who work in those branches will follow the law and respect our Constitution’s design that directs the legislative branch to make the laws that govern our people.

“Today’s ruling is a victory for all Pennsylvanians, regardless of how you feel about this particular issue. It shows that our system of checks and balances works in the interest of all people, so that no singular voice can silence the voice of free people who allow themselves to be governed,” they said.

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Just as the Commonwealth Court struck down Gov. Tom Wolf’s mask mandate for public school students in a 4-1 decision Wednesday, Bucks County parents unveiled damning evidence showing the mandate was accompanied by extremely unethical coercion of local government by the state.

Specifically, Wolf’s health department apparently directed its allies embedded in the Bucks County Commissioners’ office to strip the Bucks County Health Department of its legally delegated authority.

The information parents obtained through Right-to-Know (RTK) requests includes letters from Alison Beam, an attorney serving as Wolf’s acting health care director, and email records that together describe how state officials worked with the commissioners to reverse guidance from the Bucks County Health Department. The letters and emails were from August 2021.

Those parents from the Central Bucks School District, among those who prevailed in Wednesday’s decision against the Pennsylvania Department of Health, specifically named Beam as a defendant. They are also part of a separate, but related suit against their district that is currently before the Court of Common Pleas in Bucks County.

The RTK records flesh out some of the key decision-makers who enabled the Wolf administration to coerce its more restrictive COVID-19 policy preferences on Bucks County. The state-local conflict kicked off with an August 23 letter from Beam to the Bucks County commissioners. In it, Beam opposed the 2021–2022 School Reopening Guidance and Frequently Asked Questions that Dr. David Damsker, the county health director, had circulated just days earlier on August 15.

Damsker wrote in his guidance, “Thankfully, all available evidence in Bucks County and—elsewhere—indicates that while serious illness in children with COVID-19 is possible, it is very rare.” He added, “There is also a clear consensus that students learn best while in school and there is no substitute for the advantages that in-person learning provides.”

But the Wolf administration was having none of it. Beam’s letter labeled “numerous aspects” of Damsker’s guidance as “inconsistent” with federal and state recommendations. In preparation, Faith Haeussler, director of intergovernmental affairs for the state health department, sent an August 23 email addressed to Diane M. Ellis-Marseglia, Bucks commissioners chair, alerting Ellis-Marseglia to Beam’s pending letter: “I would like to speak with you at your earliest convenience to discuss a letter that the Department of Health will be issuing in the future.”

From that point forward, Haeussler served as a conduit for communication between county and state government officials. The official response to Beam’s letter came from Margaret McKevitt, chief operating officer for Bucks County, who sent an email addressed to Beam and Haeussler where she attached the county’s amended, more restrictive, guidance. McKevitt’s email copied the commissioners and Damsker. The commissioners’ August 23 press release detailed those changes, but provided no evidence or statement that Damsker’s guidance had changed.

“Given Damsker’s past of being measured and consistent with his previous school guidance, it would have been extremely out of character for him to change his advice two days after issuing a guidance update,” Megan Brock, a parent active with a grassroots group known as ReOpen Bucks, observed. If Damsker’s guidance had remained in place, Brock suspects that schools would have had more flexibility.

How much authority Damsker and his constituents in Bucks County now have is an open question. The back and forth between the commissioners, Beam, and other Wolf administration officials indicate an effort to short-circuit local government, particularly the Bucks County Health Department.

Other email records worth highlighting came from Mark Hoffman, executive director of the Bucks County Intermediate Unit, who sent the county’s updated guidance to school superintendents at the behest of McKevitt—with Damsker out of the loop. There was also an August 24 email from Rob McGee, the superintendent of the Neshaminy School District, addressed to both Ellis-Marseglia and Damsker, that should be of interest to parents.

McGee submited that when Bucks followed its own health department guidelines, he was able to keep Neshaminy students in school.

“Sadly, the attached recommendation sets Neshaminy back to conditions less flexible and conducive to quality education than last year,” McGee wrote. “CDC recommendations are a ‘One-Size-Fits All’ for the nation,” he added.

The recent legal victory cannot make up for the time students have lost in school this past year, but it can help to restore self-government and, crucially, local control. The pandemic and its aftermath taught us how dangerous “one-size-fits all” can be.

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The decision of whether Pennsylvania school children will be required to wear masks will be returned to local officials as of Jan. 17.

Gov. Tom Wolf announced Monday that mask and mitigation efforts will be returned to officials at the local level and that schools may use their own discretion to determine COVID-19 mitigation strategies based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.

“The school mask order has been critical in ensuring Pennsylvania’s children could safely learn and grow in an in-person classroom setting at the beginning of the school year,” Wolf said. “During the announcement, my administration made clear that we would continue to reevaluate the status of the school mask mandate. Now, we are in a different place than we were in September, and it is time to prepare for a transition back to a more normal setting.

“Unfortunately, the COVID-19 virus is now a part of our daily lives but with the knowledge we’ve gained over the past 20 months and critical tools like the vaccine at our disposal, we must take the next step forward in our recovery. With more than 70 percent of adults vaccinated in Pennsylvania and the recently expanded vaccine eligibility, I strongly encourage parents to take safety measures to protect your children and your family – like getting vaccinated.”

Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward (R-Westmoreland) welcomed the move.

“As we have stated from the beginning, the best approach to protecting the health and safety of Pennsylvanians from COVID-19 is a personal and local decision,” Ward said.  “Today’s decision by Gov. Wolf is a step in the right direction for Pennsylvania as we continue to manage out of crisis and focus our efforts on moving our state’s economy in the right direction.”

Did the outcome of the Nov. 2 election weigh on Wolf’s decision?

“Without question,” said Back to School PA PAC Executive Director Clarice Schillinger, when asked if she thought the election results played a role in Wolf’s decision-making.

Meanwhile, Paul Martino, one of the founders of the Back to School PA political action committee, which saw 60 percent of its candidates win statewide, said, “Clarice has been saying this all along…We are not surprised.”

While the PAC’s core issue was keeping kids in school, many parent and grandparent voters were also upset over mask mandates.

“The coincidence is undeniable that Gov. Wolf decided to now let masking guidance up to individual schools just days after the school board elections,” said Schillinger. “What that means, is everyone is now preparing and looking at the governor’s race in 2022. It is a real shame our children and their education has been caught between what is best for their learning and political power plays.”

Some area health departments also reacted.

“While we can’t know right now what the COVID landscape will look like in two months, the Bucks County Health Department is hopeful,” said spokesman James T. O’Malley. “What we do know is that the surest way for things to improve is for all eligible people to get vaccinated — including school-aged children.”

Kelly Cofrancisco, a spokeswoman for Montgomery County said, “The Office of Public Health will be meeting to discuss the governor’s announcement but we do not have any comment right now.”

But prior to Wolf’s order Montgomery County was only recommending masks based on transmission levels, she noted.

Meanwhile, Chester County Health Director Jeanne Franklin said, ““School districts and schools in Chester County have established their health & safety plans that include layered COVID-19 prevention strategies based upon state guidance, and all school leaders have worked throughout the pandemic to determine the plan that is best for their staff and students. With Governor Wolf’s announcement that decisions about masks will return to local school officials in mid-January, schools will review their health and safety plans related to mask use, and update if needed.  

“The Chester County Health Department will continue its role in monitoring all COVID-19 activity within schools, as well as providing support in the ways in which schools report, monitor and mitigate COVID-19 – just as it does with all infectious disease outbreaks,” she said.

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