Humble to alter closure metrics

Board backsmove to ease guidelines

Humble ISD’s board of trustees expressed unanimous support on Tuesday for Superintendent Elizabeth Fagen’s decision to change the metrics the district uses to determine when and whether to close campuses due to the spread of COVID-19, avoiding school closures that would have been triggered under the old thresholds.

The number of active cases among school staff and students, as well as the number of active cases across the district, exceeded the mark that would have forced the entire district to close in Humble ISD’s original COVID-19 metrics.

The 45,000-student district’s current active case count is the highest it’s been since campuses reopened for in-person instruction in late August, with 351 active cases among students and staff.

About 78 percent of the district’s students have elected to take their classes on campus, while 22 percent are learning remotely.

Fagen said the original metrics were created before scientists or school leaders knewhowmuch the virus would spread in classrooms. Since campuses have reopened, she said, evidence shows that bringing students back to campuses has not caused a spike in infections some had feared. At the same time, Fagen noted, students have struggled academically since the pandemic began.

“The bottom line is that it doesn’t make sense to us today to eliminate on campus as an option for children given the information we have andwhatwe know,” Fagen said.

Prior to the vote, six people spoke in favor of the district either

closing due to the pandemic or requiring face coverings be worn by all students, including those younger than the age of 10. Under both the new and old guidelines, face coverings are optional for younger students.

Larissa Powell, whose high school age daughter has been dis

tributing masks in schools across Kingwood, asked: “Are you going to follow your own metric system you set up, or are you going to gaslight parents once again? “Do we protect our staff or our students or do we do what’s best for funding?”

Trustee Robert Scarfo took offense to the insinuation that state funding was more important than students’ well-being.

“That is just lunacy to think any of us would think about well we

have to have our kids here because we’re going to lose money,” Scarfo said, his voice rising with frustration. “That’s not how I feel, and I know that’s not howmy board colleagues feel.”

Humble ISD is not the only district to change local COVID-19 protocols to be more lenient in hopes of lessening the number of school closures.

Houston ISD officials said campuses would close for several days

of cleaning if a single presumptive or positive case was reported, but then said a variety of measures would be used after 16 campuses closed the day after students returned for in-person instruction. In October, the district again changed its metrics for closing the entire district, moving the threshold froma countywide testpositive rate of 7 percent to a “holistic and data-driven approach.” Interim Superintendent Grentia Lathan has not specified what those newmetrics are.

Districts cannot close all their campuses due to COVID-19 under current Texas Education Agency guidelines, unless a school system gets a waiver from the agency.

However, Houston ISD announced Monday it had suspended all non-varsity and non-district athletic events.