La Joya ISD announced Thursday that it will nix its mask mandate, joining most of the larger Hidalgo County school districts in doing so.
Edinburg, PSJA, Mission and Santa Rosa school districts lifted their mandates earlier this year. Sharyland and Weslaco lifted theirs last year, and McAllen says it didn’t enforce its mandate from the get-go.
An IDEA Public Schools spokesperson said that district too recommended, but never required, masks.
La Joya will officially lift its mandate April 4.
The writing has been on the wall for school mandates locally for some time; a Hidalgo County order requiring them that was issued last August lapsed in December, and county Health Authority Ivan Melendez indicated new requirements were unlikely.
Still, La Joya was the first in the county to sue the state for banning mask mandates and one of the last large districts to keep its mandate in place.
Its mandate lift is something of a milestone.
The district’s decision to lift it appears to have been made at the administrative level, similar to others in the county, although some of those decisions featured a board vote.
“La Joya ISD has worked diligently and strategically to continue prioritizing the health and well-being of our students, staff, and community,” La Joya Superintendent Gisela Saenz wrote in a release. “Based on COVID-19 district data, the District continuously has had a low positivity COVID-19 rate. Therefore, in our efforts to continue our tradition of Educational Excellence and provide a safe learning and working environment, La Joya ISD is highly recommending the use of face coverings for all students, employees and visitors, but they will no longer be mandatory beginning April 4, 2022.”
Strong recommendations for face coverings have become perfunctory at Rio Grande Valley districts without mandates, as have commitments to using social distancing, sanitizing and health self-monitoring — all of which La Joya pledged to do in its release.
“We want to assure parents that all operating procedures will continue to meet CDC safety, and COVID-19 guidelines for public schools as required by TEA,” Saenz wrote.
