Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton While the state Supreme Court grapples with the legality of the state’s mask mandate in schools, the Warren County School District has settled with a group of parents who challenged the district’s attempt to circumvent the mandate.

A joint motion to settle has been filed in the litigation revolving around the Warren County School District’s attempts to skirt state masking requirements.

The motion was filed on Tuesday and states that the “parties have reached a settlement that resolves the entire case through the entry of a consent order…. All parties have approved the consent order.”

The crux of the case was a decision by the school board to effectively make masks optional in WCSD buildings. A group of parents — who have never been identified in court documents — challenged that decision and a federal district judge granted a temporary restraining order which reinstituted the mandate in the WCSD.

In response, the school board rescinded its initial action.

The draft order states that the “District shall comply with the August DOH order” unless, among other reasons, it’s amended, deemed invalid, the state changes course or the consent order is modified.

“Plaintiffs are deemed the prevailing party in this action,” the proposed order states. “Within 13 days of the date of this order, plaintiffs’ counsel shall file a petition for fees requesting those fees incurred in this case. Defendants shall file a response to the Motion for Fees within 14 days.”

Once the petition and response are filed, the court would then need to issue a further ruling on that issue.

The underlying legality of the state mask order was before the state Supreme Court on Wednesday for argument.

The high court, according to an Associated Press report, last week ordered that the directive, which took effect in early September, remain in place while they consider a legal challenge from the state Senate’s highest-ranking leader and others.

The order was going to expire in the wake of a Commonwealth Court decision that found the Department of Health did not have the authority to issue the order.

Per the AP, the Commonwealth Court majority concluded Pennsylvania’s disease control law does not give health secretaries “the blanket authority to create new rules and regulations out of whole cloth, provided they are related in some way to the control of disease or can otherwise be characterized as disease control measures.”

Gov. Tom Wolf has previously announced that the mask decision will be turned back over to local officials early next year.