Wall Parents' Refusal To Wear Masks Leads Board To Halt Meeting

WALL, NJ – Tuesday night's Wall Township Board of Education meeting was first delayed, then postponed to a later date after audience members refused to put on masks.

The board decided to postpone the meeting until Aug. 31 after an hourlong back-and-forth about the requirement to wear masks, which ultimately yielded no results.

Those in attendance stated that there was no such requirement at the last meeting on Aug. 11, which was after the mandate require masks was put into place. There was also nothing online warning the public that masks would be required at the meeting on Tuesday night.

The decision to postpone the meeting was met with derision from the gathered crowd, who pelted the board and Superintendent Tracy Handerhan with calls to resign and accusations of being cowards.

Multiple videos were filmed by Betsy Cross, a Wall resident with a son in high school and one of the admins of the private Wall Local Watchdogs Facebook group, where the videos are currently posted, depicting parents voicing their frustrations about the mask mandate to staff, school officials, and even a representative of Jack Ciattarelli’s campaign, who was there to support the parents.

Outside of the high school’s cafeteria, Ralph Addonizio, the board’s president, tried to explain to the group of people gathered outside just how this board and other boards' hands are tied because Gov. Phil Murphy’s order requires everyone in a school to wear a mask.

“I think it is important that everyone understands the limits of board powers as well as administrators,” Addonizio said to Patch on Wednesday, saying that what happened was “the fault of the governor.”

“For everyone that has issues with the executive order, they need to contact their legislators because they are the ones that vote to give the governor his power. If we had home rule last night, then the meeting could have had mask optional and not have had any issues.”

Despite Addonizio’s feeling that this current consternation is at the feet of Gov. Murphy, Cross told Patch that Wall’s Board of Education is taking “zero accountability” for its actions and no longer feels that the schools are safe.

“While my husband and I would love our son to graduate from Wall High School, we have no faith in the current administration of Tracy Handerhan, Wall BOE superintendent, Brian Smyth as Business Administrator, and the BOE members under the leadership of Ralph Addonizio as President and Finance and Facilities Chair Russell Gartz,” Cross said to Patch via email on Wednesday morning. Cross said she plans to file ethics charges against the board, Smyth and Anthony Schiarello, who led the investigation into the Central Elementary School trailers.

The new meeting date is Aug. 31 and will be a virtual meeting, according to Addonizio.