Special to El Rrun-Rrun
With schools in the Brownsville Independent School District scheduled to in-person learning August 17 (next Tuesday), the board of trustees has scheduled a special meeting at 3:30 p.m. this Thursday to decide whether they can require face coverings for returning students and also whether to challenge Gov. Gregg Abbott's May executive order prohibiting funding for virtual learning.
Resistance is growing to Abbott's May executive order that Texas schools can’t require masks, with an advocacy group suing to block the order and some of the state’s biggest districts issuing mask mandates anyway or indicating they want to.
The Dallas Independent School District officials announced Monday morning that they will require students and teachers to wear masks on campus. The DISD is the second largest school district in Texas.
Austin ISD’s superintendent also announced late Monday that masks be required, according to KXAN-TV.
Houston ISD Superintendent Millard House II has said he wants to issue a mandate, too, and a school board meeting for Texas’ biggest district to discuss the idea is scheduled for this week.
This Thursday, the board of the Brownsville Independent School District will hold a special meeting Thursday to pass the above resolution claiming that the decision to mask or not to mask should be left up to the local school district boards and not to the governor. They will also decide whether to authorize their legal counsel to file a lawsuit against Abbott's order and to authorize the Commissioner of Education to provide funding for virtual learning.
However, Abbott has blocked public entities, including schools, from mandating masks or vaccines. The Texas Education Agency echoed that restriction in its latest guidance. Many health experts are calling for parents to voluntarily mask their children and vaccinate them if they are eligible.
Abbott stated earlier this month that he was past the point of issuing government mandates to slow the spread of COVID-19, even as the delta variant has cases and hospitalizations up across the nation. Instead, he said it is time for personal responsibility, which he emphasized when he took away the statewide mask mandate earlier this year.
Abbott stated earlier this month that he was past the point of issuing government mandates to slow the spread of COVID-19, even as the delta variant has cases and hospitalizations up across the nation. Instead, he said it is time for personal responsibility, which he emphasized when he took away the statewide mask mandate earlier this year.
In the absence of a statewide mask mandate, the group seeks to give the power to enforce mask wearing back to local school districts, said Hank Bostwick, DISD volunteer center coordinator and lawyer.
Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina said in a statement that she urges other school districts to join Dallas ISD in requiring masks and also called for Abbott to rescind his executive order.
“We agree with Dallas Superintendent Michael Hinojosa that it is within a school district’s discretion to take steps to ensure the health and safety of its students and employees,” Molina said.
The lawsuit claims that Abbott is overeaching his authority and that his emergency powers should be used to take proactive steps and “not to advance an anti-mask political agenda that has no discernible basis in the data regarding the COVID-19 contagion rate.”
“This is purely political gamesmanship, and has nothing to do with the health and safety of Texas children or their teachers,” DISD's Bostwick said.
The Texas State Teachers Association has previously urged Abbott to give schools the power to require masks ahead of the start of the school year.
There were 342 COVID-19 patients in the Hidalgo County hospitals Monday, the county announced, 70 of them in intensive care units.
They bring the total number of fatalities to 2,963, bringing the county to a total of 101,434 cases, 63,749 of them confirmed, 35,417 probable and 2,268 suspected.
Cameron County also announced new COVID-19 data Monday, adding 420 new cases of the virus and four related deaths.
The total number of cases there stands at 41,754, and the county’s death toll is now at 1,723.
At least one City of Brownsville city commissioner has said she will enroll one of her children in the Austin ISD. District 2 commissioner Jessica Tetreau has posted on her FB page that she has already enrolled and will spirit away her youngest son there to prevent potential exposure to COVID-19 in BISD schools.
A critic said that even though the commissioner takes her kid every day to the family car wash without a mask, now she wants to opt to give the Austin ISD taxpayers her money.
Is that the way to go?
17 comments:
Save the children from Brownsville. Now is the time for action.
This mother is keeping her two daughters at home doing virtual learning. She is paying for all this expense.
What some parents are willing to do to save their kids.
Vermincrat Cuomo is RESIGNING! This was the Communist’s Party boy for 2024!
Gotta remember 95% of all texas teachers are racist republicans.
Good idea JT.. I think you should move to Austin so you can be close to the school, Id do it quickly before they run out of houses. You'll be close to the gigafactory and much more. go, now, quickly!!
So you think that by wearing a paper mask or a cloth underwear on your face will save you from the corona? Where is the evidence of that.
If you are vacinated you are fine (0.0037 chance of breakthrough ) and if you are not you will get the corona and get immunity. That's it.
The mask is to show dominance over the person wearing it. Lazy teachers just looking for a reason not to go back to work.
Blogger at 7:05 - Where do you draw this conclusion. Teachers would much rather be in the classroom to successfully see and help each child meet their needs. Planning for virtual learning is not an easy process and one on one or face to face teaching helps each teacher identify what student is actually picking up the lesson. instead of blaming the teachers, could we deduct that those who want to sent their children to school do not care if they catch this deadly virus or maybe that now they have to keep the kids at home and do some schooling themselves? Or, they must now find a baby-sitter? Be objective and look at both sides of the issue before you accuse teachers of being lazy.
Its a comedy act from the clowns at BISD nothing else.
So, hook nose registered her kid at Austin ISD? So, she doesn't care if BISD gets the attendance money? So, is this bitch living in Austin? If not, who is taking care of her kid? Or, is the kid still living in Brownsville?
Again, if you people didn't teach your children to be hygienic, then you're the problem! Oh, I understand the fear BUT you can blame that idiot biden for opening the borders! Remember, some of those kids will be attending BISD!
I agree with Governor Greg Abbott.
I don't think it's morally right for BISD to force all students and young elementary children to wear face masks. Those cloth face masks that most students wear are not even that effective in preventing covid anyway.
And virtual instruction? Again?! Students did HORRIBLE on the end of the year test! Students doing at-home learning would not even stay logged in to the teacher's sessions. Some didn't even log in at all! It was all a very unhealthy situation for everyone: students mainly, parents, and teachers. Virtual instruction does not work, and children are not learning that way. Some children are really going to fall EVEN MORE behind academically, and probably even socially, if BISD continues with virtual instruction.
If some parents are concerned about sending their child for face-to-face instruction, THERE IS HOMESCHOOLING! But hmm... do parents want THAT responsibility and pressure?
https://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20140709/kids-still-getting-too-much-screen-time-cdc#1
https://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpao/multimedia/infographics/getmoving.html
CDC & Virtual Instruction = Hypocrites
Elementary students, especially, should NOT be participating in that much screen time. Virtual instruction only encourages screen time. Laptops/computers count as electronic devices and screens, even if it's for "school" purposes; it's still screen time. Virtual instruction is hurting kids of all ages. That's extremely hurtful what that mother did to her Kindergarten student by enrolling him in virtual instruction in Austin. How sad.
THERE IS ALSO HOMESCHOOLING! There is NO need for virtual instruction anymore! Parents could home-school their children themselves.
All students need to return to school for in-person face-to-face instruction already, so that they can continue their learning and improve their social skills. No excuses anymore. BISD is doing a lot of damage to their students and their parents. I think it's time to consider other better districts, like IDEA. NO EXCUSES.
Wearing face masks should be a choice, NOT mandatory. Students sneeze inside their face mask, that's not hygienic.
Regarding virtual learning... This past school year, there have been many occasions when I saw young elementary children out at places like Walmart and Marshalls with their mom DURING SCHOOL HOURS! They are not doing virtual instruction every day.. maybe not even at all. Those kids should be in school, learning in-person the right traditional way because that's what worked all these years. They should not be out shopping with their moms during school hours. Yet those moms are scared that their kids will get covid?! Yeah right.
Looks like BISD just has to find a way to keep using all the laptops and chromebooks they invested in last year. I hope they get a lot of damaged computers back in return. Virtual instruction only promotes laziness and leads to dumbness. Just look at the most recent STAAR test scores. Students who did remote learning did not learn.
Masks do not even work. I used to wear a mask all the time and I would always put hand sanitizer, and I still got covid, AND I WAS FINE! I was not hospitalized. In my case, a regular cold was worse than COVID!
Now I NEVER wear a mask and I rarely use hand sanitizer, and I haven't gotten covid again. To top it off, I'm not vaccinated and I do not plan to get vaccinated.
This past school year, both my elementary kids would constantly tell me that their teacher would tell them to keep their mask on, yet their own teachers would remove their mask in the classroom. That was not fair at all. That's somewhat abusive to me. My kids could not say anything. They just did what they were told. They are being voiceless in all this; it's becoming disturbing and sad.
Masks are not enforceable, and teachers and BISD should be more focused on providing the best in-person instruction they can give. It's more important now than ever.
How does BISD know what's best for students and why do THEY get to choose the decisions regarding health and safety for everyone? That's not fair for everyone else. Why should BISD have that power to decide all that? What about the parents? Shouldn't parents be the one to decide what's best for their own child? Shouldn't the children and students have a voice as well?
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