Texas school district adds masks to dress code, defying Abbot’s ban

A school district in Texas amended its dress code to embody face coverings as a means to skirt Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on masks mandates.

The Paris Independent School District, which serves about 4,000 college students in northeast Texas, introduced Tuesday that masks can be required when faculties reopen Thursday.

The transfer got here on the identical day that Abbott’s workplace introduced that the Republican governor examined constructive for COVID-19 regardless of being totally vaccinated.

“The Board of Trustees is concerned about the health and safety of its students,” district officers stated in a press release. “The board believes the dress code can be used to mitigate communicable health issues, and therefore has amended the PISD dress code to protect our students and employees.”

Abbott “does not have the authority” to take over the board of trustees’ obligation to govern public faculties, in accordance to the district officers who cited state schooling code.

“Nothing in the governor’s Executive Order 38 states he has suspended Chapter 11 of the Texas Education Code, and therefore the board has elected to amend its dress code consistent with statutory authority,” the assertion concluded.

The movement including masks to the district’s dress code handed by a 5-1 vote at an emergency assembly Tuesday. The new requirement for each staff and pupils can be revisited at every month-to-month board assembly, the Paris News reported.

“For health reasons, masks are required for all employees and students to mitigate flu, cold, pandemic, and any other communicable diseases,” the district’s new dress code reads.

The lone dissenter, trustee Clifton Fendley, stated he believed the district was exploiting a loophole to circumvent Abbott’s statewide ban on masks mandates, insisting the transfer was towards the board’s oath of workplace.

Abbott, 63, imposed a ban on masks mandates in late July in Texas, the place 112,004 new COVID-19 circumstances have been tallied previously week, together with 647 deaths, in accordance to Johns Hopkins University knowledge.

About 46 % of Texans are vaccinated whereas greater than 54,000 have died statewide for the reason that begin of the pandemic, knowledge exhibits.

Abbott additionally promised final week to take to court docket any school district, public college or native official who flouted his masks mandate ban.

“No governmental entity can require or mandate the wearing of masks,” Abbott stated. “The path forward relies on personal responsibility — not government mandates.”

A message searching for remark from Abbott’s workplace Wednesday was not instantly returned.

The ongoing battle towards the virus and the extremely contagious Delta variant is stretching hospitals statewide to their collective breaking level, in accordance to Dr. Amanda Green, director of the Paris-Lamar County Health District.

Green, who has two youngsters who attend Paris High School, stated one native hospital ran out of ventilators Monday, sending employees scrambling to discover extra.

But at the very least one mum or dad seemingly agreed with Abbott, saying Tuesday that his baby had “mental health consequences” whereas adhering to final 12 months’s statewide masks mandate, the Paris News reported.

“Shame on you,” mum or dad Joshua Vorron stated whereas leaving a cafeteria after the vote.

The Texas Supreme Court, in the meantime, on Sunday halted masks necessities put in place by county leaders in Dallas and San Antonio as college students begin returning to school.

But officers in Dallas and Bexar counties stated its mandates had not been struck down or a remaining resolution had but to be made, in accordance to the Associated Press.

A choose granted San Antonio and Bexar County its request for a short lived injunction Monday. The ruling was anticipated to be appealed by the state, the Associated Press reported.