Area schools return to routine
Masks, distancing mark in-person classes for districts
By 7:10 a.m. Monday, 10-yearold Allie Stidham had prepared a peanut butter sandwich, stuffed nine notebooks into her bulging backpack and checked the tires on the black-and-blue bicycle she planned to ride to Eagle Springs Elementary School.
As her mother monitored the Weather Channel for hurricane developments, Allie moved with such anxious energy that she finished her morning chores 20 minutes before Eagle Springs Elementary opened to students for the first time in 5 ½ months.
“I think it’s going to be kind of normal, but I’m just nervous about all the rules, because I love to hug people,” Allie, a fifth-grader, said as she waited for the bottom of the hour to approach.
As the novel coronavirus pandemic continues to upend the Houston area, Humble and Lamar CISD on Monday became the region’s first school districts to welcome back large numbers of children for in-person classes, with more than 35,000 students projected to arrive on campus.
The two districts, located on opposite corners of the Greater Houston area, resumed face-toface classes for slightly less than half of their students while also hosting online-only classes for families who remain fearful of sending their children back into school buildings. With limited exceptions for some students with disabilities, all of the Houston region’s largest public school districts have kept campuses shuttered since mid-March due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
“The kids came in very excited and ready,” said Humble Elementary School third-grade teacher Kirsten Boston, whose seven-student class Monday was about half as large as last year. “Of course, they had questions, but they always do on the first day. It was really nice because it felt like home again.”
The reopening of Humble and Lamar schools came as many health officials argue it is too early to resume in-person classes. However, many parents and educators concluded the academic, behavioral and social benefits of face-to-face instruction outweigh the public health risk.
In Humble, which started the first three weeks in online-only classes with limited exceptions, about 60 percent of the district’s roughly 45,000 students are expected to attend in-person classes. The district allowed all elementary school students to return to campuses Monday, though middle and high school students will split time between in-person and virtual classes.
At Humble Elementary, about 300 students traveled to campus Monday morning while another 300 continued to learn online. Children arriving in person were greeted by smiling teachers wearing face shields, masks or a combination of the two. A sign at the front entrance warned about the symptoms of COVID-19, while hand sanitizer stations dotted the hallways and locks covered drinking fountains.
In non-pandemic times, family members could enter the campus and walk children to their classrooms on the first day — a tradition on hold amid the pandemic.
“This year, because we want to make sure everybody is socially distanced and we screen people as they come in, we didn’t have that opportunity,” Humble Elementary Principal Veronica Hernandez said. “I think that’s hard as a parent. We just feel like it’s a rite of passage.”
Boston wore a face shield Monday morning as she read the book “First Day Jitters” to students sitting a few feet apart on a rug and seats. One child donned a mask while her classmates did not — which met Humble protocols that
only require children ages 10 and up to wear face coverings.
“We practice safety and hygiene and how we interact with each other regularly, so it’s just kind of adding that factor of making sure that everyone sanitizes their hands and spaces out a little more,” Boston said.
Humble plans to resume full-time, in-person classes for middle school by Oct. 12, while high school will go full-time when the local COVID-19 test positivity rate reaches 5 percent or a vaccine is available.
Harris County’s 14-day, rolling average test positivity rate fell to 11 percent as of late last week, down from a peak of 23 percent in early July.
Humble’s reopening bucked the guidance from Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Public Health Executive Director Umair Shah, who said local schools should stay closed until the area outbreak declines. Under current trends, Harris County remains at least a few weeks away from meeting benchmarks that Hidalgo and Shah set for starting to partially reopen campuses.
Gov. Greg Abbott, however, said county and city government officials do not have the legal authority to preemptively close campuses, leaving that power to local school boards. Abbott has not yet issued an executive order overriding a Harris County order to keep campuses closed through Labor Day, but county officials did not enforce their mandate Monday.
In Humble, advocates for reopening argued families should have the option to choose in-person classes, and they noted the district’s outbreak is less severe than other corners of Harris County. The five ZIP codes encompassing Humble currently report about 2.8 active cases per 1,000 people, compared to 5.3 cases per 1,000 people throughout the county.
In Lamar, about 45 percent of families in the 35,850-student district chose in-person classes for their children. Unlike Humble, the district is allowing students in all grades to return full-time.
Lamar staff members and children in grades four through 12 are required to wear face coverings while on campus. Numerous health and safety protocols have been implemented, such as staggering transition times, limiting the number of people in common areas and making hand sanitizer available.
“I think we had a really great rollout after being on the campuses and seeing how the protocols were put in place,” Lamar Chief Academic Officer Theresa Mossige said. “As we begin looking through the rest of the week, it’s about continuing to monitor those actions and habits, to make sure they’re ingrained.”
For Elida Zuñiga, the mother of a kindergartner, sixth-grader and 10th-grader in Lamar schools, the restart of in-person classes allows her to keep her job as a cashier — though safety fears persist.
“I think everybody is scared,” Zuñiga said as she waited Monday afternoon in the Navarro Middle School pickup line. “I’m scared, too, but life has to continue. We need to keep sending our kids to school, as we always do.”
A few of the Houston area’s medium- and largesized districts are scheduled to resume some in-person classes next week, including Clear Creek and Pearland ISDs. Several plan to start face-to-face classes during the week of Labor Day, such as Cy-Fair and Katy ISDs.
Houston ISD will not bring back students until mid-October at the earliest. Campuses in Alief and Fort Bend ISDs remain closed indefinitely.