HISD reopens as COVID cases mount in neighboring districts
For the second straight year, Houston Independent School District is set to welcome back nearly 200,000 students in the midst of a pandemic.
The similarities between last year and Monday’s reopening, however, end there.
HISD entered the 2020-21 school year with COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations in Harris County on a downward slope. Nonetheless, the district began the year online and did not open its campuses until October. Nearly half of its students finished the school year learning remotely even as case numbers had waned toward the end. Those who returned to campus remained masked up, socially distanced and, in some cases, behind plexiglass.
This year, the district is plunging right in, offering limited remote learning to vulnerable kids and requiring face masks but relaxing social distancing requirements while COVID cases and hospitalizations are rising higher than ever, driven by the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus and a lagging vaccination rate in Harris County. Many of those cases involve young people, including children under 12 unable to be vaccinated. Eighteen percent of new cases at the Texas Medical Center this month have been children, CEO Bill McKeon said.
A look at COVID numbers in the surrounding districts, most of which have been open for less than two weeks, provides a glimpse into what the largest school district in the state could face when it opens its doors Monday.
A week and a half into the school year, Conroe ISD reported 1,487 students and 143 employees were isolated with symptomatic or test-positive COVID-19. Fort Bend ISD disclosed 536 total cases among students and staff. At Spring ISD, officials had 139 active student cases on the seventh day back.
On Friday, HISD had 157 active cases. The district finished last year with 2,037 total cases among students and another
1,600 among staff, according to state figures.
“We are really shoveling water out of the boat as we go because the cases are going up. The cases are jumping into the boat while we are shoveling them out of the boat,” HISD Superintendent Millard House II said of the region’s surge. “We are doing the best job we can, being as strategic as we can — keeping students and staff first in every decision that we make.”
During his first week on the job in early July, House announced his goal to have a full return to inperson classes. The Texas Education Agency said the same, noting the Legislature did not include funding for remote learning in the state budget.
At the time, Harris County’s 14day average positivity rate for new COVID cases was 4.1 percent. Last week, the average reached 20.4 percent.
Pediatricians have identified the vaccination of all eligible adults in student households and classrooms as a key for schools to reopen and stay open, as well as the wearing of masks and other precautions suggested by health officials.
“I don’t think many of us, as we were preparing for the school year, were expecting what we are dealing with right now, which is very similar to what we dealt with a year ago,” said Alief ISD Superintendent HD Chambers, whose schools welcomed children back on Aug. 10. “I don’t think we were planning on having to go through this again.”
Despite the rapid increase in
cases following the opening of some area schools, none has shut down, unlike last year when as few as one or two cases prompted districts to close individual classrooms or entire schools.
At HISD, House has said there will be no threshold to shut down a classroom. The district’s reopening plan states no school closures are anticipated.
Last year, the district temporarily closed 16 campuses with confirmed or presumed COVID-19 cases a day after students returned. This year, House has said, officials will look at the circumstances of each situation.
Masks to stay?
One measure expected to stay in place will be the mask requirement.
Case numbers eventually will affirm the district’s decision to mandate masks if current trend lines continue, said Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers and former leader of the district’s largest union.
“Where you have more mitigation procedures put in place,” Capo said, “we are seeing less potential for breakouts to rapidly happen, which ultimately lead to school closures.”
By the end of last week, COVID numbers reported by districts already open showed a range of infections.
Dallas ISD, the state’s secondlargest district with an enrollment of nearly 150,000 students, had confirmed 185 student cases. A mask mandate has been in place.
Humble ISD, which reopened Aug. 10, had confirmed 466 cases among students out of approximately 46,951 kids on campus.
At the district’s North Belt Elementary School, Principal Christina Morris estimated roughly 60 percent of her students and staff wear face masks. Only one student and three staffers had become sick in the first two weeks, according to the district.
“I have an abundance of PPE available for my staff or students as they need. It is always available to them,” Morris said. “I am more excited to have my kiddos back and being able to be with them, and I will do whatever it takes to be able to keep that.”
House said he had been in contact with officials at districts that already have started school, who have told him they are close to meeting enrollment targets for the first couple of days. While COVID-19 cases are higher in some schools than last year, House said the situations have been “manageable.”
He said he also spoke with his counterpart at Dallas ISD, who estimated only a handful of students had pushed back on a mask mandate out of thousands who have returned to school.
“That information has been very, very helpful,” House said. “In terms of masks, we have seen very little issues.”
Legal fight with Abbott
Local officials and school districts challenging Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates are embroiled in legal battles with the governor and attorney general. Last Thursday, the state’s Supreme Court decided to temporarily permit districts and some local governments to require masks, rejecting Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attempt to expedite his challenge to the mandates.
“I do wish the state would allow
local districts to make their own decisions and do what they believe is in the best interest of their district,” Alief’s Chambers said, adding he also wished for virtual learning funding for the students who excelled remotely. “We had that ability a year ago. All of these tools were at our disposal a year ago. They have since been removed.”
Pediatricians, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, recommend in-person learning with precautions — and that everyone who can get vaccinated do so as soon as possible.
“Our schools’ success will be reflective of what is happening in our community,” said Dr. Jill Weatherhead, assistant professor of pediatrics, tropical medicine and infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine. “The community needs to band together and do these mitigation strategies, too. And then, of course, universal mask wearing is also important to help reduce transmission both in our community as well as in our schools.”
Dr. Omar Matuk-Villazon, a pediatrician and professor at the University of Houston’s College of Medicine, said he planned to send two of his children back to school at HISD.
“You are going to do whatever you can from your part, but it is frustrating when other people don’t do their part when we are in this together,” Matuk-Villazon said. “I think that is something as a society that we need to learn. We need to: Everyone do their part, so as a collective we do good, but that is a very hard concept to get out.”