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More than 4,000 Frisco ISD students have signed an online petition that will be presented to district administrators and the board of trustees on Sept. 13 as a plea to impose stricter COVID-19 regulations within the district.
High school students Katherine Shaw and Srinath Nandigam launched the petition on Thursday asking for a mask mandate for students and staff along with other COVID-19 regulations.
“The COVID-19 situation in Frisco ISD has been worsening by the day,” Shaw and Nandigam write in the petition. “Given the severity of COVID-19 and the rise of numerous variants, we believe more should be done by the district in order to ensure the safety of students and staff, as well as parents and family members at home.”
In the petition, the students request that Frisco ISD:
- Enforce a mask mandate for all students and staff in Frisco ISD facilities
- Reinstate contact tracing
- Encourage all students to sanitize their hands upon entering each new classroom
- Educate students on respiratory etiquette
The district updated its COVID-19 protocols on Aug. 30, including a recommendation of hand-washing and sanitizing, which the district said it already expected of students and staff but did not clearly define in its protocols previously.
“Frisco ISD will continue to evaluate and adjust our protocols where we see opportunity to effectively do so,” Frisco ISD Assistant Director of Communications, Meghan Cone, wrote in an email statement.
Frisco ISD currently has no mask requirements for students or staff in line with an executive order from Gov. Greg Abbott prohibiting mask mandates in government facilities, including schools. Dozens of Texas districts have defied Abbott’s regulation, enforcing masks on students in the new school year despite the executive order.
When a surge in COVID-19 cases occurred in July, the district announced an online option for all students not eligible for vaccination due to age.
Since the start of the school year, Frisco ISD parents have also protested the district’s decision to not enforce a mask mandate, gathering three times outside of the administration with signs.
The district has recorded 1,163 cases of COVID-19 among students and 95 among staff since the school year began on Aug. 12. The district has approximately 65,000 students.