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Wisconsin Supreme Court says Catholic schools can open

Injunction suspends Dane County health order closing most classroom instruction.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s emergency injunction will allow schools like Madison’s St. Ambrose Academy to open classrooms starting Sept. 14. (Photo courtesy St. Ambrose Academy)

MADISON, Wisconsin — Stating local health officials likely do not have legal authority to order closure of schools, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction late Thursday suspending the Dane County health agency’s August and September orders that forced all schools to close classrooms to in-person instruction in grades 3-12 due to the COVID-19 coronavirus.

“Multiple arguments — constitutional, statutory and administrative — are lodged against the order,” the 11-page ruling states. “While reserving the remaining claims for later disposition, we conclude that local health officers do not appear to have statutory authority to do what the order commands.”

The court issued an injunction against Public Health Madison & Dane County’s Emergency Order #9 and enjoined the agency from enforcing it. The court’s 4-3 ruling means Catholic and other private schools that challenged the closure order can open for in-person classes starting Monday. The injunction was effective Thursday, September 10. St. Ambrose Academy of Madison led a coalition of Catholic schools that in August petitioned the Wisconsin Supreme Court for an emergency injunction holding the closure order in abeyance. St. Ambrose raised nearly $109,000 using a crowdfunding web site to hire the Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders law firm to challenge the closing order.

St. Ambrose announced it will open for classroom instruction in grades 6-12 on Monday, September 14. “We are ecstatic that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has recognized the right of parents to choose how to educate their children. Our families know the risks; they’ve assessed them carefully and are prepared to go to great lengths to protect their kids,” said Joan Carey, executive director of St. Ambrose Academy. “But they also know that putting children in front of computer screens hour after hour and day after day and even month after month causes irreparable harm.”

Public Health Madison & Dane County issued Emergency Order #9 after close of business on Friday, August 21. Many Catholic and other private schools were scheduled to open the following Monday, so parents had to scramble to arrange child care and schools quickly switched to distance learning via the internet. Most public schools in Dane County had already decided to start the school year with virtual learning, but many Catholic, Christian and non-religious private schools planned to open for classroom instruction this fall. The closure order hit especially hard for students with disabilities and those under Individualized Education Plans (IEPs).

“Our parents have been utterly overwhelmed trying to find ways to move their children’s education forward while juggling work and the little ones running around underfoot,” Carey said. “Shouts of joy are echoing through the homes of our families tonight. Our kids can’t wait to see their friends again, to make new friends, and to be back with their teachers who love them. Our teachers can’t wait to greet their students in person and restart the conversation that got shut down in March: that beautiful back-and-forth conversation that happens between teacher and students in community with each other that is the essence of the joy of learning.”

Rev. Scott Jablonski, pastor of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Cross Plains, said his parish school will be open to all grades on Monday. “It is frustrating that we had to go down this road in the first place, but I am grateful that the court saw through the illogic and injustice of the order and is willing to hear our arguments going forward if need be,” Fr. Jablonski said. “In the end I am most happy for our students and their families, since they were the ones who suffered most over the past two weeks. I look forward to welcoming all of our older students back to school this coming Monday and being able to teach them more about Jesus and the ways of authentic justice.”

Scott Grabins, technology director for Edgewood Campus School in Madison (4K through grade 8) who has one daughter at Edgewood High School, said he is thrilled with the court ruling. “As a parent, I know my daughter is anxious to get back into the classroom, see her friends, and continue with the school year,” Grabins said. “As an educator, I’ve worked closely with teachers as they’ve had to pivot from in-person to virtual instruction throughout the start of the school year.  They care deeply about providing the best possible instruction to students regardless of the format, but there’s no doubt in my mind that meeting in person is the best option. Hopefully the Wisconsin Supreme Court will resolve this soon and provide some certainty to everyone.  In the mean time, I’m just looking forward to getting back to school.”

The case has raised important legal questions about whether unelected local health officials have legal right to issue diktats to in essence close public and private K-12 schools for in-person instruction during COVID-19. The Dane County agency has argued it has broad police powers under state law in order to control what it believes to be a dangerous pandemic, while St. Ambrose argued the Wisconsin Legislature specifically omitted the power to close schools from state statutes governing local health officers. The conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court sided with the schools, writing that power to close schools “is statutorily absent.”

The court’s majority disputed Dane County’s assertion that public health director Janel Heinrich may do “what is reasonable and necessary for the prevention and suppression of disease” and the agency’s closure order is a permissible restriction on public gatherings. The ruling said “what is reasonable and necessary cannot be read to encompass anything and everything. Such a reading would render every other grant of power in the statute mere surplusage.” Interpretation of state statutes that health officers have “carte blanche” authority “would call into question compatibility with our constitutional structure.”

Angry parents descended on a recent meeting of Public Health Madison & Dane County, providing testimony on the hardships being caused by the closure order. Parents and students protesting in front of the City-County Building wrote messages in pink chalk on the public sidewalk, including, “Let kids go to school safely.” Within minutes, city workers appeared with power equipment and washed away the chalk lettering. On September 1, the health agency amended Emergency Order #9 to allow students with disabilities and those under IEPs to attend in-person instruction.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered that the three sets of plaintiffs challenging the order be consolidated into one case. The plaintiffs will have 30 days to submit a brief of up to 75 pages, and Public Health Madison & Dane County will have 20 days to respond. Plaintiffs will have another 10 days to submit a rebuttal to the health agency’s brief, putting the case into November before the court considers further action.

As of September 10, Wisconsin has had 84,881 cases of COVID-19. Nearly 1,200 deaths have been due at least in part to COVID-19, according to state data. Just over 300 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (Wisconsin has 11,500 hospital beds). According to an analysis of state data by the MacIver Institute, there have been no deaths of people under age 20 due to COVID-19. Only 2 percent of all COVID-19 deaths were people under age 40.


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About Joseph M. Hanneman 101 Articles
Joseph M. Hanneman writes from Madison, Wisconsin.

14 Comments

    • The data does not support keeping schools closed, only politics does.
      Life has never been without risk. Snowflakes have a hard time with that.

    • Of course the cases will spike. Based on current real data. No students or teachers will be hospitalized or die. There will be some who show symptoms and have to stay home kind of like with many diseases. At least the children have a shot at a good educational outcome and are being taught not to hide in fear. So around 0.4% will have a positive test of which the strong indication is the majority will either be false positives or asymptotic. At least Madison appears to have a Bishop that cares for his flock and not just lives in fear.

    • It is good to see Dane County so focused on the health of children. For the state of Wisconsin, based on 2019 data, there are three to four abortions for each Death reported as COVID-19. There is something they can address that will save a lot of lives quickly.

    • Cases in Rhino viruses and Flu spike every year. People die, and no one (except those most closely involved) really care. We do not stop life because of that.
      .
      The medical problems we ought to be concerned about are improper diet/nutrition, obesity, drug use, and STDs

  1. We all want to open our schools, but we must understand that this most deadly virus is spread is a child with an asymptomatic infection. No prevention methods are available to protect others until a vaccine is discovered. No tracing, no masking and no social distancing will identify the spreader even testing is suspect.

    The intro picture of kids grouping closely together with arms over some shoulders sends the same unscientific message as the president sends when he holds rallies with thousands of participants closely seated and without masks. An incubation site for the coronavirus.

    We pray that one day God will free us from this scourge, but until that time we must all follow the CDC guidelines. And, we must also remember that “we are all in this together”.

    • Actually, we’re not all in this together. There are those that have pensions, social security or other means and they can stay home until the dollar is not worth anything and the stock market is shut down.

      then there are those of us who must work to make payments and eat, and are not benefiting from any unemployment or recurring government payments. In blue states like MI it’s what the governor wants and nothing else matters, so no, we are not in this together. If the federal government hadn’t printed another 3 trillion we would be in a depression, not due to the pandemic but due to the unchecked lockdowns. Yet, a 3rd of the people who died in MI were elderly in rest homes, I believe, so who’s protecting whom? Abortion clinics are left open, as essential service, while people who have cancer are afraid to get treated.

      What about the millions of untold stories of uneducated children, unreported domestic situations, unpaid unemployment, abuse etc… that is going on every day since these lockdowns occurred? Why can’t you take back your returnable cans yet? Yet the governor’s husband in MI was not locked down just before Memorial Day as the rest of us were strongly urged to reconsider traveling, and he snuck up north and started name dropping to try and get his boat in the water for the holiday. The elite and I are not in this together, believe me.

      People are Kowtowing to the governors like a bunch of sheep.

    • That photo was taken over a year ago. The school starts offering in-person learning on Monday (with a virtual option to families that want it.) The in-person plan includes among other things: 1) Social distancing, 2) Masks, 3) Cleaning after each class, 4) Controlled movement throughout the day. The safety standards at the private schools are the same or better than what the county is allowing for day care centers and virtual learning centers, but the county never ordered those to close. Apparently they believe that education itself in any environment would spread the disease – or at least education by private schools.

    • Then why are we wearing masks and sanitizing everything? We are quit possibly only creating Super Bugs.
      .
      This whole asymptomatic carrier paradigm is bunk. Mid Michigan already had a super spreader event–a dam system failed, distrupting the lives of 11,000 people, who ended up in shelters, hotels, and other people’s homes–sometimes for weaks. Service groups from all over the country came in to help clean up the mess. No masks and no endless bottles of hand sanitizer.
      .
      And no significant rise in Covid infections even when they offered free testing.

    • Morgan,
      I’m not a medical expert either but we really don’t know if or how children might spread the virus.
      You may be correct, but opening schools back up in Europe appears to be going well.
      Even though Covid infection rates have recently increased in places like Spain , the death rates remain low.
      I’m remaining cautious about all this but I also know the virus is being used selectively as a political tool to stir up fear.
      You be safe and have a blessed Sunday.
      🙂

  2. Since the curve is now back to pre-covid levels, everything should open. The Dems and their media arm are still trying to foment panic to drag this out until after the election to justify their push for mail-in voting. Already many have been arrested for mail-in voter fraud in the primaries.We already have absentee voting so the only reason for mail-in voting is to facilitate voter fraud.

    • Bets, just the facts please. You and DJT are ignoring the scientists who deflate Trump’s misdirection on the virus. Trump falsely says, as he does frequently, “we are turning the corner”. Trump’s disparaging violations of CDC rules, holding massive rallies indoors with no masks, has reached the epitome of pandemic defiance. The US is still far above Europe with over 6 million infections and nearly 200,000 innocent souls dead. As with mail-in voting… experts say there is little corruption with the process Truth always wins.

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  1. Catholic schools stay open in WI; December court date set over COVID closure order – Catholic World Report
  2. Catholic schools stay open in WI; court date set over COVID closure order - Catholic Daily
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