BOARDMAN — A group of Boardman parents has filed a lawsuit against the Boardman Board of Education and Superintendent Tim Saxton regarding the district’s mask requirement.

The school district has repeatedly said the reason for the mask mandate is to keep students in classes.

Ten parents, referring to themselves as the Boardman Ohio Parents Organization, filed a lawsuit individually and on behalf of their children Tuesday in Mahoning Common Pleas Court.

They are seeking a restraining order to the school district’s mask policy. The lawsuit alleges that the board does not have the authority to implement the policy the organization claims to be unconstitutional, illegal, arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable and not supported by substantial, reliable evidence.

The lawsuit states the organization requests that the court declare the district’s mask mandate null and void and enjoin the enforcement of the mandate. The group is being represented by attorney John N. Zomoida Jr. of Anthony and Zomoida LLC in Poland.

The district’s communications coordinator, Amy Radinovic, said the board and the superintendent had not been able to review the lawsuit as of Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s news to us. No one has even seen a copy of it yet,” Radinovic said.

She said the district does not have an official comment, and board members and Saxton need time to “digest” the information before commenting.

Efforts by The Vindicator to reach Saxton and some board members on Tuesday night were unsuccessful.

The school district first implemented the policy at the beginning of the school year and, initially it was supposed to last 20 days. The mandate was announced in a video from Saxton on Aug. 20 — 10 days before the first day of school.

The board held a special meeting Aug. 31 to discuss the mandate with the agreement that no action would be taken. More than a dozen parents spoke against the policy during the meeting. Many of the same parents addressed the board again during the regular meeting Sept. 27.

Rich Wyant, the first name listed on the lawsuit and whose home address is listed as the organization’s address, threatened to take the district to court during the Sept. 27 meeting after the board voted to continue the mandate. During the meeting, he said the board needs to answer parents as to why the mandate is in place and when it will end, and he will take the district to court if answers are not given.

“If I take you guys to court, you’re going to sit for deposition on my dollar. You’re not going to get out of it. We’re going to find out what this really is about,” Wyant said during the meeting. “You guys have to tell me. I don’t want to do that, but you’re forcing my hand.”

He also told the board during the meeting that he believes the board is “victim” to misinformation and has been “brainwashed by propaganda.”

The parents involved in the lawsuit are listed as Richard Wyant, Nick Coiro, Angela Nespeca, Joy Horton, Brandon Berg, Joel McKendry, Dwight Kent McMurray, Christine Gardner, Michael Black and James Hazenstab III.

The 25-page lawsuit cites a “60 Minutes” interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, from March 2020, the beginning of the pandemic. In the interview, Fauci said the standard cloth face mask does not offer the amount of protection that people believe, and that American people have “no reason to be walking around in a mask.”

He also stated that masks can have adverse health effects due to breathing being mechanically restricted, and prolonged and continuous mask wearing could be detrimental to one’s health, all of which is stated in the lawsuit. The interview predates the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advice on mask wearing that was updated on April 3, 2020, to include more findings on the effectiveness of masks.

The lawsuit also cites a Stanford University study that found nonmedical-grade face masks to be ineffective at stopping the spread of COVID-19.

The lawsuit claims that there is a low risk of children spreading the virus, and children account for a small number of cases. It also states that only six children aged 4 to 17 have died of the virus in Ohio.

Twelve children in total have died in Ohio according to the Ohio Department of Health, six of whom were under the age of 4. The ODH COVID-19 dashboard also indicates that September saw the highest number of positive cases among children in the state so far with 45,219 children infected, which is double the number in August. While students were out of school for the summer, the numbers remained low with 1,067 in June and 3,369 in July.

During the Sept. 27 meeting, Saxton backed up the decision with several graphs that cited local and state data showing an increase in cases among school-aged children over the past few months. He made the point that masking allows students to continue in-person learning even if they are exposed to a positive case.