Some of Texas’ biggest school districts are lifting mask mandates for students just weeks before spring break.
Houston Independent School District, the state’s largest district, and Dallas ISD announced Monday that they would not require students to wear masks. Austin ISD announced Wednesday it would stop requiring masks.
The move comes after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that coronavirus infection rates were slowing.
“It does give people hope for this spring,” said Dallas ISD superintendent Michael Hinojosa.
All three districts enacted mask mandates in early August amid the delta variant surge and in defiance of Gov. Greg Abbott’s May executive order that says Texas schools can’t require masks.
At the time, dozens of school districts went against the governor’s order, and some were sued.
[…]
Candice Castillo, executive officer of student support services in Houston ISD, said recent data points to a dramatic downturn. In a district with about 195,000 students, there are 46 active cases, a 90% decrease in cases from the peak of omicron.
The district’s decision comes after Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo lowered Harris County’s COVID-19 threat level from “severe” to “significant.”
“This is the right moment for us to make this decision,” Castillo said.
In Austin ISD, the district has seen a 97% decrease in cases over the last six weeks, and the current number of active cases represents less than 1% of the total student and staff population.
Stephanie Elizalde, Austin ISD superintendent, said Wednesday during an Austin ISD board meeting that the district is abiding by the CDC’s recommendations, but to keep in mind that the fluidity of the pandemic means that the mandate can come back when necessary.
See here for more on HISD lifting its mask mandate. You can feel however you want about this – I know a lot of people are still very apprehensive about easing off on precautions like masking, and I totally understand. I’m still masking in public indoor spaces, and likely will continue for the foreseeable future. But the point is, the districts got to make the decisions they thought were best, based on the status of the pandemic and the advice and guidance from the CDC. That more than anything is what we wanted and deserved. The fact that they managed to hold out in defiance of Abbott and Paxton for all this time is a victory. It could be a transient one – for sure, someone is going to file a bill next session to force school districts to bend the knee to the governor – but at least we have an election first that can affect that action. Again, that’s all we can reasonably ask for at this time.
On the matter of the still-unresolved litigation over the mandates and Abbott’s executive order banning them in the schools:
.
In today’s orders, Texas Supreme Court again takes no action on cases involving Gov. Abbott’s ban on mask mandates.
Kind of a “nothing to report” report, but this week I had a few reader questions on where things stand.
Background: https://statesman.com/story/news/2022/02/21/texas-supreme-court-mask-mandate-decide-power-greg-abbott-local/6705858001/ via @statesman— Chuck Lindell (@chucklindell) 9:15 AM – 4 March 2022
I Am Not A Lawyer, but my best guess is that SCOTx will eventually take this opportunity to decline to intervene on the grounds that there’s no longer a reason for them to get involved. I suppose they could order the lawsuits to be dismissed, but here’s where my non-lawyerness comes to the fore, because I don’t know if that’s a thing they normally do. Be that as it may, the stars have aligned for them the sidestep a politically charged case, and that I know is a thing they like to do.