PITTSBURGH (TNS) — Parents in nine Western Pennsylvania communities have sued state officials and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center over school district COVID-19 mask mandates, saying schoolchildren are being improperly denied medical exemptions from masks.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court on Wednesday by Butler lawyer Alexander Lindsay. It names Alison Beam, the secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health; Sherri Smith, deputy secretary for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education in the state Department of Education; and UPMC.

Beam in August issued an order requiring students to wear masks in school.

Part of the order allows for an exception if wearing a mask causes a medical condition, makes an existing one worse, or creates a mental health issue.

In September, Smith told school districts that the Department of Health order was “not a mask-optional policy” and said any schools that permit a parent “sign-off” without medical evidence is not in compliance with the order and could be open to legal action.

As a result, according to the lawsuit, school districts have “rigorously demanded that any parent seeking an exemption for a medical condition must have medical evidence, including medical records from the affected child’s pediatrician or a treating physician.”

Parents seeking an exemption have been told by their pediatricians or personal physicians that UPMC and other large health care providers are not supporting exemption requests.

”Throughout Western Pennsylvania, school administrations are sending children home, segregating them in schools, subjecting them to abuse on the part of teachers and other students and otherwise making it impossible for them to get a public education as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” the lawsuit says.

The ten plaintiffs — nine parents and one guardian — are from Kittanning, New Castle, Leechburg, Johnstown, Grove City, Apollo, Rural Valley, McKeesport and Hastings.

The complaint describes various medical problems of students in those communities and their alleged need to be exempt from masks.

In one case, the parents of a 9-year-old girl in the New Castle Area District who has social anxiety and attention deficit disorder said they tried to get an appointment with the girl’s pediatrician and psychiatrist to get an exemption.

The doctors’ offices told the father they couldn’t schedule an appointment because of the huge number of parents trying to get exemptions.

The girl went to school on Sept. 7, and a school official told her father she’d have to be picked up because she didn’t have a mask. The next day, she went to school without a mask again, and her father went to see her pediatrician to get an exemption. The doctor told him the office couldn’t provide one because they were “not ready to put their license to practice on the line” by signing an exemption, according to the suit.

The father then tried to get an exemption from the girl’s psychiatrist, but the doctor declined to meet with him, the suit said.

The school called him and told him to pick her up. When he got to school, he said, the school nurse told him the girl was showing COVID symptoms. She ended up in quarantine for 10 days.

On Sept. 20, the girl went to school again, this time with a “religious exemption,” but the district told the father it was unacceptable and she would have to be picked up.

The father couldn’t go and get her, so the district separated the girl from her class and told her parents that she would be suspended for three days for her refusal to wear a mask. The district said she would be expelled if she kept coming to school without one.

In the end, the parents enrolled her in a cyberschool, according to the suit, “to avoid the inevitable expulsion for failure to wear a mask.”

In another case, the guardian of a 17-year-old student in the Leechburg Area School District with ADD and anxiety issues tried to get an exemption from Children’s Hospital doctors, “but the doctors refused to sign an exemption for fear of being sued,” the suit said.

The boy refused to wear a mask and at school on Sept. 8 asked to go to the bathroom. When a teacher escorted him, he said, “This is retarded.”

He ended up suspended for the remark and for refusing to wear a mask, according to the suit.

The suit argues that state officials do not have authority to issue a school mask mandate because that power rests in the hands of school boards.

The complaint raises a claim under the Rehabilitation Act, a federal law guaranteeing that people with disabilities cannot be denied participation in any program receiving federal money, such as schools.

It also brings a claim under the 14th Amendment, which guarantees due process and equal protection, saying the districts are depriving students with disabilities of an education.

The complaint is seeking an injunction against the defendants declaring that they are in violation of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act by maintaining a policy of refusing exemptions.

The suit is also asking that the August order by the secretary of health and the September communication from the secretary of education be voided.