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Fort Worth ISD continues to recommend all students, staff and visitors wear masks.
Superintendent Kent Scribner had announced in a special board meeting Tuesday night that he was making masks mandatory for staff and students this fall.
“The safety of students faculty and staff has and always will be our priority,” Scribner said then.
Dallas ISD superintendent Michael Hinojosa announced a temporary mask mandate in the district, as well as other districts throughout Texas, including Austin ISD and San Antonio ISD, and the mandate Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins issued Wednesday applies to all schools and businesses in the county.
But Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are challenging the new rules in court. They are defending an executive order from the governor that prevents local governments from adopting mask mandates, arguing that individual Texans should be responsible for choosing whether to wear a mask.
A Dallas County judge had ruled Tuesday that Abbott’s executive order is “not [a] necessary action to combat the pandemic”, and agreed to a temporary restraining order that will allow county judges to require face coverings. The ruling came after parents of 12 Dallas County children asked her to allow local schools to mandate masks and protect those too young to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Scribner said he was influenced to make an administrative decision Tuesday, in lieu of a board vote, after receiving a letter from 125 Cook Children’s physicians imploring the district to institute the mandate.
“We are writing to you to express our concerns about the Delta Variant of COVID-19 and to recommend that our school district implement safety protocols beyond those that have been in place this summer to address this exigent threat,” the letter reads.
The letter asks the district for “universal masking for students and staff in accordance with CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations.”
As the delta variant takes hold throughout the nation, Cook Children’s physicians said in the letter that the new wave of cases is “alarming.” Since the letter was published, a group has said there are no pediatric ICU beds remaining in Texas.
“The rapid increases in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths locally and throughout the US in recent weeks are alarming and require an appropriate response. Indeed, we are seeing rising COVID-19 cases in our practices,” the letter read.