Sparta Families File Lawsuit To Block School Fall Mask Mandates

SPARTA, NJ — Six parents and eight high schoolers from different parts of New Jersey, including Sparta, have joined in a class action suit filed against Gov. Phil Murphy to block mask mandates in the fall.

Plaintiffs, who are also from Bordentown, Mahwah, Bernegat, West Orange and Middletown, retained attorney Bruce Afran, a Princeton-based lawyer, on behalf of their group Free NJ Kids.

Afran’s complaint, which also names New Jersey’s Health Commissioner Judith M. Persichilli and Commissioner of Education Angelica Allen-McMillan, was filed in U.S. District Court, to challenge mask-wearing in the fall.

Mandatory mask wearing, per the complaint, “burdens and impairs protected speech rights,” with mandatory plexiglass dividers also cited in the suit as a devices that confine and imprison students, keeping them from their friends and teachers, while introducing “an unnatural form of control upon children in the classroom without parental consent.”

On behalf of the litigants, Afran said children who were told their masks were not on properly at school, were singled out.

"Children are regularly chastised by teachers if their masks slip below their nose or if masks are not adjusted properly; children are regularly and routinely threatened with disciplinary write-ups if they do not adjust their masks to a 'correct' usage," the lawsuit stated.

The lawsuit also alleged that students in New Jersey’s public schools "have continued to be made subject to mandates that they must wear face masks and engage in social distancing and other isolating measures.”

Murphy announced at the end of June that New Jersey Department of Education and Department of Health recommendations on masks will be updated once CDC guidance is given, but outside of any dramatic change, masking in New Jersey likely won’t be mandatory, unless districts require it.

Sparta Township Schools Superintendent Matthew Beck relaxed masking for the district’s summer programs after Murphy’s announcement; and said in the fall, masks will be optional, but required on buses in the new school year.

RELATED: Lawsuit To Block School Mask Mandates Filed By Princeton Attorney
RELATED: Sparta Schools Relaxes Masking For Its Summer Programs

Reporting contributed by Sarah Salvadore.

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