Tensions Run High at School Board Meeting

by Adam Paranich

School board meetings can rarely be characterized as “interesting, dramatic, exciting, or divisive.” Yet all of these adjectives apply to a meeting held a few weeks ago on September 15, 2021. The meeting was short, no genuine contents or affairs were discussed--instead, something happened that is polarizing local politics across the country—fights over mask mandates.

The meeting was only ten minutes and eight seconds long, a sharp decline from the standard hour and a half. Two minutes into the meeting, Outgoing-Superintendent, Dr. Mahon, left his post to request attendees comply with Governor Wolf’s mask mandate. After no one put their mask on, three minutes and forty-seven seconds into the meeting, Dr. Mahon went back to the table to whisper with other members of the school board. At five minutes and seven seconds into the meeting, all in attendance recited the pledge of allegiance. At this point, the civil atmosphere began to atrophy as anger began to clearly boil between the generally pro-mask mandate school board members and the anti-mask mandate public attendees.

At precisely six minutes into the meeting, Dr. Mahon asked one more time for attendees to put on masks. Again, after no one complied, at six minutes and twenty-five seconds, he ended the school board meeting and called for law enforcement.

At seven minutes and fifteen seconds, all of the members of the school board left the room in which the meeting was held---offering no explanation--implying the obvious. Right after that happened, the audience began to sing “God Bless America,” then the “Star-Spangled Banner.” Eight minutes and thirty-eight seconds into the meeting, local law enforcement arrived and began to talk to the audience--though what was said was unknown. The recording ended at the ten-minute, eight-second mark by Dr. Mahon.

After the meeting, Mahon made remarks to Morning Call stating, “Our school board came together tonight to conduct the public business. Members of our community complied and came with their masks on, and because a very small minority of individuals decided not to wear masks complying with the governor’s orders that are beyond the control of the school district, we were not able to do that business for the public. So it’s deeply regrettable.”

Mask mandates, specifically school mask mandates, have become a very polarizing issue in American politics lately. According to a poll released in the Associated Press back on August 23, 2021, 51% of parents supported mask mandates for teachers, while 25% opposed, and 23% “neither favored nor opposed.” Support jumped to 52% of parents when asked the same question regarding the students, though opposition jumped by a larger margin to 28%, while 18% of parents “neither favored nor opposed.”

Interestingly, this story didn’t only make news in Abington itself. Several local newspapers reported the story, including PA Home page, Morning Call, and most interesting, The Saucon Source, a local newspaper based out of Saucon Township down near Allentown. This is because Dr. Mahon is Abington’s Outgoing-Superintendent. He is leaving to become the Superintendent of the Southern Lehigh School District, based in Saucon Township and surrounding municipalities.

As mask-mandates have become a controversial order in America, fights like these have plagued school boards across the country. Though only sixteen states have mask-mandates, primarily Democratic-leaning states on the east and west coast, school districts across the county have imposed their own mandates. This, along with other controversial topics such as the teaching of “critical race theory,” vaccine mandates, and the transgender-bathroom issue, has made the school board, formally a consensus-building, friendly bastion of local politics, a decisive proxy-stage for national political schisms. It looks like Abington Heights has fallen victim.

The next meeting took place October 6, 2021 with nothing out of the normal except for the lack of a live audience. Clearly related.

The October 20, 2021 saw the appointment of an interim superintendent to fill in for Dr. Mahon until a permanent replacement is found. The district's business manager, Jim Mirabelli, will being acting superintendent until further notice.