Schools in the area are set to open, and as administrators and staff prepare to open the doors and welcome students back after five months, state legislators are asking the Wolf Administration to stop issuing contradictory additional guidelines.

Rep. Tina Pickett, R-Towanda, and 41 other legislators, including Rep. Martin Causer, R-Turtlepoint, signed a letter addressed to state health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine and state Education Secretary Pedro Rivera Friday. The letter focused on allowing school officials to implement measures that make sense based on their district and the current levels of COVID-19 in their area.

“The issue is the constantly changing directives from the governor,” Causer said when contacted Friday afternoon. “Some time ago, the governor had required school districts to come up with detailed safety plans for the reopening of schools. Then recently, the governor came out and said all children are going to be required to wear masks all day long, with limited exceptions.

“I think it should be left in the hands of local school administrators, local school districts. It’s not helpful for school districts to have constantly changing directives from the governor’s office,” he explained.

In the letter, Pickett wrote, “School leaders have been working for months to develop reopening plans in a way that keeps both children and educators safe from contracting COVID-I9. Part of that preparation included following clear guidance issued by your departments in July that said masks may be dispensed with if children were kept socially distant at six feet apart.

“Following that clear guidance, and understanding that the governor has given local control to school leaders on how to reopen, schools planning to reopen to in-person learning went through painstaking measures to reconfigure classrooms and alter class sizes to accommodate six feet of distance between students.”

The letter notes that strategies in place in Allegheny County or Philadelphia may not be as applicable in “our most rural areas, some of which have only been affected by this virus in very limited ways.”

Causer voiced recognition of the same, noting that different districts may be able to implement different approaches to keep students safe while educating them.

“We are calling for the administration to be able to formulate a safety plan and make those decisions on a local level,” Causer stated. “Circumstances are different all across the state, and local school administrators should have flexibility for their own districts, based on their own needs.”

Legislators from various districts in Pennsylvania signed the letter, including Rep. Matt Gabler, R-DuBois.

The letter also states that, “Moving forward, we request that any guidance on reopening prioritize local control, reopening schools to in-person education, and clarity and certainty for school leaders. Our children deserve nothing less than our best efforts to provide them a safe, learning environment and the best educational opportunities possible.”