A federal judge ruled in favor of a group of students with disabilities who sued the commonwealth of Virginia over the lifting of mask requirements in their public schools.

The plaintiffs in the case argued the executive order and the Virginia law making masking a matter of parent choice both interfere with their right to a public education under the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Federal district judge Norman K. Moon agreed with the families in an initial ruling on Wednesday night. He said that families should be able to request some degree of masking as one of the “reasonable accommodations” schools make for students with disabilities — in this case, to ensure that their medically vulnerable children can attend safely. State law preventing schools from making decisions about masking can be “preempted” in those instances, he wrote.

Moon granted the request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in the case.

The ruling affirms that federal disability rights law takes precedence over state law.

“The [state] law impermissibly tried to take masking entirely off the table and said no matter what the disability is, no matter what the individualized needs of the kid or the school community are, they cannot use masking as a strategy. And this court said that’s not right,” said Kaitlin Banner, the deputy legal director at Washington Lawyers’ Committee and one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs.

Importantly, Moon’s order does not suspend or strike down the state law making masks optional. The judge made clear that his ruling only applies to the schools and classrooms relevant to the plaintiffs in the case, not schools across the state.

“This is not a class action,” he wrote. “The twelve plaintiffs in this case have no legal right to ask the Court to deviate from that state law in any schools in Virginia (much less school districts) where their children do not attend, or indeed even those areas of their schools in which their children do not frequent.”

Under the order, Virginia authorities are not allowed to enforce the state law in ways that might “prevent or limit Plaintiff’s schools or school districts from considering” requests for masking, according to the ruling.

The ruling grants temporary relief for the families in the case while further litigation in the matter moves forward. The commonwealth could choose to appeal the temporary order up to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, or continue to trial in the federal district court in Charlottesville.

“We are glad the court agreed: No student should have to risk their lives to go to school,” tweeted the Virginia ACLU, one of multiple groups representing the plaintiffs.

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares emphasized that the state law remains in effect, saying in a statement that the ruling “affirms that Governor Youngkin’s Executive Order 2 and Senate Bill 739 is the law of Virginia and parents have the right to make choices for their children.” (The order doesn’t dispute that state law gives parents that right, but it also suggests that those parental choices could be overruled in certain situations to protect the health of an immunocompromised student.)

Earlier in the year, Youngkin’s executive order ending school mask requirements in favor of parent choice drew multiple lawsuits from parents and school districts on state law and state constitutional grounds. Most challenges either did not succeed or were cut short by the passage of S.B. 739, which made school masking up to parents.

Moon’s order could have immediate impact for the twelve students in the case. They all have serious medical conditions, like cancer, diabetes, and cystic fibrosis, that put them at high risk of serious illness or death if they were to contract COVID-19. Many of them have been told by their doctors that it is not safe for them to attend school during times of significant community transmission if other students and teachers are not masked. But under the state law that took effect earlier this month, requiring masking was off the table as a potential intervention to keep them safe while in school.

Now, masking could be back on the list of mitigation measures for students with disabilities — students like Jack Nelson, a 10-year-old Manassas City Public School student who has cystic fibrosis. His doctor, a specialist at Johns Hopkins University, recommends that Jack’s classmates be masked during times of moderate or high COVID-19 transmission. School officials have been trying to support the family and keep Jack in school, but have been hamstrung by the state law.

“In all my meetings with the school thus far, it has been made very clear to me that the only barrier to them implementing masking in my son’s classroom, as his doctor recommends, is the executive order and S.B. 739,” the mask-optional state law, Jack’s mother, Tasha Nelson, told WAMU/DCist.

Nelson says Jack’s school even drafted a letter to families in his classroom to let them know that a medically vulnerable child was in the class, and requesting their children wear masks — but the school didn’t send the letter for fear of running afoul of the law. Educators tried seating Jack near students who were still wearing masks, but that wasn’t a perfect solution, either, according to Nelson; students would forget to put them back on after recess or lunch, and teachers were not allowed to remind them to mask up.

The decision to send Jack to school in that environment was terrible, Nelson says, but she couldn’t work with him at home, and her family needed the income from her job.

“Every day has been scary,” she says. “I didn’t have any choice in that matter because I couldn’t work and keep him home, and our school district doesn’t have a virtual option for synchronous learning.”

Nelson has high hopes that her next meeting with school officials about accommodations to keep Jack safe will go much more smoothly. As for Jack, she says he was thrilled when she told him the news of the ruling on Thursday morning.

“His honest response was he put his breakfast down and stood up and started flossing and dancing in the kitchen,” she says. “And then he gave me a big hug, and then he went to play on his phone.”

Lawyers for the plaintiffs suggest the ruling could also help set precedent for schools and parents of children with disabilities around the commonwealth, not just Jack Nelson and the others covered under the case itself.

“I think it is a guiding decision to help school districts make decisions about whether they can make reasonable accommodations to this law, whether or not they can add community masking as part of the menu of reasonable accommodations for students,” Banner said.

For now, the families who brought the suit can request some type of masking from their schools, based on consultation with medical providers and discussions with school officials.

The specific school districts and schools the plaintiffs’ children attend include several in Northern Virginia: Stenwood Elementary School in Fairfax County, Trailside Middle School and Loudoun County High School in Loudoun County, and Jennie Dean Elementary School in Manassas City.

Other plaintiffs attend schools across the state, in Albemarle County, Bedford County, Chesterfield County, Chesapeake County, Cumberland County, Henrico County, and York County.