Middletown BOE Sends Resolution To Gov.: Drop The Mask Mandate

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — The Middletown school board will send a resolution to Gov. Phil Murphy this week, asking him to rescind his executive orders 251 and 253. These are the mandates forcing all K-12 students and teachers wear masks in school, and that teachers be vaccinated against coronavirus, or face twice-a-week testing.

The Middletown Board of Ed. voted at their meeting Tuesday night to send the resolution. Two board members, Tom Giaimo and Deborah Wright, voted against sending it. All the rest: Joan Minnuies, Jacqueline Tobacco, Frank Capone, Barry Heffernan, Leonora Caminiti and John Little voted to send it. Michael Donlon was not present.

Masks should be optional, said a majority of the Board. Here is exactly what they will send to Murphy: https://www.middletownk12.org/...

Middletown will join the ranks of school districts in Holmdel, Brick, Wall Twp., Toms River, Wayne in North Jersey, Barnegat and Manasquan, all of which already sent similar letters to the governor, asking him to either drop his statewide school mask mandate or leave it up to the individual districts to decide.

The Colts Neck Board of Education is considering writing a similar letter to the governor and will debate that at their next meeting Sept. 1. A Colts Neck resident told Patch she is trying to model what Colts Neck will send after Middletown.

While many in New Jersey dislike Murphy's school mask mandate, the Middletown BOE has been the most aggressive fighting it.

Last week, the Board introduced this idea that would allow parental or individual notes to exempt a student from wearing a mask. However, Middletown's board attorney Bruce Padula said he was personally contacted by someone in Gov. Murphy's administration at 10 o'clock Monday night, warning him if the board proceeded with that idea, the state of New Jersey would immediately sue the Middletown school district, seeking an injunction.

Board vice-president Capone suggested proceeding anyway, and fighting the state of New Jersey in court.

"Over the past eighteen months, Phil Murphy has governed and cast executive orders that we have been forced to comply without any input from elected officials at the Township or Board of Education," he said. "Our legal counsel was informed at 10 p.m. last night that King Murphy does not approve of the parent's right to inform the district of any medical issues pertaining to mask wearing and has now issued executive order 253, to disallow our policy ... I would proudly stand behind and ultimately be forced to comply by court order by which has been threatened. Or we can amend the policy. I will stand with this board either way."

(The Board ultimately voted to approve a policy that does not allow for parental or individual notes.)

Capone then read the resolution Middletown will send to the governor.

"Middletown public schools have been operating safely with masks optional since June 2021 and throughout the summer program," said "The district took extraordinary measures to secure access to vaccines for all staff, resulting in over 80 percent of school staff being vaccinated."

He also said Gov. Murphy as recently as August said, "school officials should be empowered to make their own decisions" and "one size doesn't fit all for opening up school districts." On Aug. 2, Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli said, "It's up to the individual if they want to wear a mask indoors."

Murphy said he reinstated his K-12 mask mandate because the CDC now recommends universal masking, even among those who are vaccinated and especially for those who are not vaccinated (children under 12).

Some Middletown parents agree with the governor.

"It's very scary because our children cannot be vaccinated yet," said mom Jennifer Johnson on the sidewalk outside the meeting Tuesday night. "When I'm seeing is infuriating; it's a misunderstanding of science and truth."

Johnson works as a cardiac nurse at Riverview Medical Center. In the worst of the outbreak last spring, she was deployed to the ER and COVID unit due to so many beds full of COVID patients. She saw many people die, she said.

This Patch reporter pointed out that some parents have said that forcing a child wear a mask for eight hours a day, every day, when some kids get daily migraine headaches, feel they cannot breathe or feel extremely high anxiety, is tantamount to child abuse.

"Allowing a child to get COVID or the risk of COVID — that would be child abuse," she said. "If one child got COVID because of their anti-mask mandate, would they really want to live with that?"

"I feel like they think we want masks on forever," said another Middletown mom, Kristen Goodrich. "We don't. We just want to get through this."

She said her son, 9, has a very rare genetic kidney disease and that he has been treated at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). When she told his doctors at CHOP that the Middletown school district wants to make masks optional, she said they became very alarmed and told her if that happened, he should not go to school.

"I don't want to keep my son in a bubble this year. I want him to go to school, to play sports," she said. "This pandemic won’t last forever, but if I didn’t do all that I could to keep my family and others safe, I couldn’t live with myself."

Mom Christina Bernard disagreed.

"I understand everyone has their own opinion on how to raise and take care of their child. And that's their right to do so. My child, that's my right to raise them as I see fit," she said. "These children have had an an entire summer of pool clubs, sleepovers and contact sports unmasked ... And we are all fine. Now come September my children have to be masked up again after they were let free at the end of the school year unmasked? I am not sending my child to school with a mask on any longer.

"We do not know the long-term effects of what these children are going to endure. This is unprecedented. I will no longer stand by and let others make choices for my child's physical and mental health," she said. "I will fight with every breath I have to make sure my children have the freedom they deserve."

Related: Middletown BOE Backs Off Parental Notes To Exempt Mask Wearing

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