Despite the latest spike in COVID-19 cases in Hidalgo County, new mask requirements for local students appear unlikely.
(Joel Martinez | [email protected])
The norm at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, mask requirements have been abolished at some campuses and policies across the county have grown decidedly fuzzier.
Education and health leaders not currently supporting a strong mask requirement give a variety of reasons for doing so.
Some say voluntary masking is high enough to obviate a mandate; others say they’re ideologically opposed to mandates and never supported them in the first place.
Back in August, half a dozen school districts in the county filed suits against Gov. Greg Abbot and the state related to an executive order prohibiting mandates for face coverings and instituted in-house mask requirements.
Hidalgo County Health Authority Dr. Ivan Melendez issued an order mandating masks in local schools, allowing school boards the option to opt out.
The Monitor reported on three sizable districts in the county that decided, one way or another, to proceed without a firm mask requirement.
A nine-week order, Melendez indicated his mandate would likely be allowed to lapse days before its initial expiration date last October. He wavered later in the week and renewed it.
In mid-December, however, that order quietly lapsed.
Melendez said Wednesday that any other guidance local schools get from the county on masks in the near future won’t go beyond a strong recommendation to require face coverings.
“Courts decided that the schools, because they’re elected officials, can do what they want on their campuses,” he said. “So I met with the superintendents and I strongly recommended mask use and vaccination. And it’s up to them to do mandates because they’re the ones that have the authority based on what the Texas Supreme Court said.”
Court action aside, Melendez said, an effective mandate for schools is tricky because of an essential lack of any strong enforcement mechanism.
“How do you enforce it?” he said. “What do you do? It’s so hard to enforce these mandates.”
Melendez emphasized that case numbers are high and so are danger levels, though he noted that schools do tend to be more proactive about COVID-19 precautions than other locations where people congregate in big numbers and that most Hidalgo County districts are continuing to require masks.
Mission CISD never instituted an in-house mandate but always adhered to the county’s mandate, perhaps the largest district in the county to do so.
Despite the county order expiring, a statement from the district last week said that because of the pandemic surge and in the interest of community safety the district “is continuing to require face coverings in district facilities until we receive updated guidance from our area health leaders.”
The district did not reply to an email asking whether or not they’d been notified by the county about the order’s expiration.
Melendez says that guidance from him won’t go above a recommendation, and county Judge Richard F. Cortez signaled earlier this month that decisive pandemic action on his part during this wave of the pandemic was unlikely.
It also appears unlikely that local districts who don’t have a firm mask requirement will institute one.
The Monitor reported on three Hidalgo County districts that had no requirement last year: Sharyland and Weslaco, both of which opted out of the county’s mandate, and McAllen, which didn’t opt out but also didn’t enforce it.
Those three districts all reported last week that masks are not likely to be required soon.
Interim Weslaco ISD Superintendent Criselda “Cris” Valdez said Wednesday that the district’s reading of TEA guidance prohibits requiring masks.
Besides, Valdez added, it wouldn’t change much: she estimates 98% of students are voluntarily masking.
“Really we’re attaining the same goal,” she said. “We’re attaining the same goal as other districts that are mandating.”
A Sharyland spokesperson described the district’s policy as continuing to encourage masks.
When that district’s board voted out of the mandate last year, Trustee Alejandro Rodriguez noted the board could always revisit a mask requirement if the pandemic worsened again.
Cases have certainly increased at the district. When The Monitor spoke with Rodriguez last week, the district had reported 953 cases of COVID-19 among its students and staff since August, a whopping 62% all reported between Jan. 1 and 14
Rodriguez said Wednesday that he’s not ready for another mask requirement, and at least in part attributed that jump in cases to increased testing.
“I think masks are a good idea; mandates are not,” he said.
Pandemic policies may come up at the board’s meeting later this week, Rodriguez said, and although he wouldn’t completely rule out ever supporting a mask requirement, he said it’s likely not in the cards.
“Based on those numbers, based on those discussions that come up, we might consider making some changes to our policy,” he said. “But as it is now, I think we’re getting to a point as far as a population where we have to deal with this disease. I mean, it’s something that we cannot let dictate our lives. We have to keep living. We have to keep kids in school.”
Sharyland added another 402 cases to its total Monday, its largest single-day increase yet. Those new numbers indicate that about 74% of the cases the district has reported since August were reported this month.
