Vaccine rules, masks at play for 2 S.A. districts

San Antonio Independent School District employees who have not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19 will have to wait longer to see whether the district can require it.

The Texas Attorney General's Office and SAISD lawyers agreed to postpone for six to eight months a trial that had been set for Wednesday on the state's effort to kill the vaccine mandate.

As the omicron variant of the virus has spread rapidly, the area's largest school district, Northside ISD, on Wednesday announced it would reimpose a mask requirement it had relaxed in the fall.

The state says the Texas Disaster Act gives the governor the authority to override local health protocols, while the city of San Antonio, Bexar County and some school districts have argued that Gov. Greg Abbott's use of that authority is an overreach. Most of the arguments have taken place in the early stages of lawsuits, during attempts to get injunctions preventing defendants from enforcing their rules.

The city and county sued Abbott last summer to get an injunction allowing local governments, including school districts, to implement mask-wearing mandates. The state's high court has issued contradictory rulings on school mask mandates and a few districts still require masks — or, like Northside, implement the mandate on an asneeded basis. That lawsuit is set for a trial in July.

Northside Superintendent Brian Woods issued a statement thanking teachers and nurses for covering for each other through high rates of student and staff absences and announcing, “We will be returning to a temporary, indoor mask mandate.”

“The members of our Board and I do not make this decision lightly, but feel that we must use this tool given the current disruption to in-person learning. The mandate is driven by concerns for student and staff safety and is not motivated by the current legal battles on this issue,” he wrote.

Last summer, SAISD ordered its 7,000 employees to get their shots and set a deadline of Oct. 15 to submit proof of it. The state filed suit Sept. 9, saying the mandate violated an emergency order by Abbott forbidding local governments from imposing mask or vaccination requirements.

SAISD officials reported at a board meeting last week that about 87 percent of its teachers, 2,700 out of a total of 3,097, have been vaccinated. Some 85 percent of all staff have reported being vaccinated, about 6,614 employees out of 7,714.

Among those receiving shots, the district's central office staff had the lowest proportion of vaccinated, 79 percent, with 1,441 vaccinated out of 1,835 total.

State District Judge Mary Lou Alvarez denied the state's request for an injunction against the district last fall, and the Fourth Court of

Appeals later rejected Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's appeal of the lower court's ruling.

Paxton then appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, which stayed enforcement of the mandate while it continues to consider the state's petition for an injunction, saying it sought to preserve the status quo while expressing no views on the merits of the state's case.

The agreement to delay the trial will allow that process to finish, the parties said.