Thread by @HISDParents

I’m at the #HumbleISD Board meeting tonight. Join me on this thread for live-tweeting and discussion.

Registration for Pre-K starts April 5.

Time for public comments. Here we go...

Comment about foreign exchange students. Says that foreign exchange students are limited to 1 while neighboring districts are allowing 5-10.

2nd speaker says she has approached Board about safety in past. Says removing masks would not represent safety. “If you vote to make masks optional, it’ll show that you are weak...”

Parent in crowd tells her, “Shame on you.”

3: Humble ISD abandoned recycling program last June. Asks Board to reimplement recycling program.

4: Keep Houston Beautiful commissioner. Texas Health & Safety code requires Humble ISD to recycle. “Please work earnestly to re-institute recycling.”

5: Long title, but for sure she’s a scientist. Talking about a new strain. “This decision should in no way be about what parents what.” Wait for vaccinations before removing mask protocol.

6: MS student was attacked. Recording was attacked. Police didn’t give options, no counselor was offered. ISD offers nothing for victims. “Where do we stand on safety in the district...?” Asked about victim support.

7: RN. Sick of wearing masks, but we are so close and if we pull back mask mandate it’s going to get bad. Teachers haven’t had a chance to get vaccinated. “Give us a chance.”

8: Requesting mask & COVID protocols in place through the end of the school year.

9: Former HISD teacher. Imploring to not reduce safety protocols this year. “We should set the example of putting safety above popularity.” Reducing protocols before we have time to get vaccines is irresponsible.

10: Parent of 2. Concerned for teachers & staff, have not had time to get vaccinated and difficult to get vaccine around work schedule. Asks to keep mask mandate and giving options for teachers to get vaccines (paid time off or station in district).

11: Wants to remind Board we emphasize students becoming global citizens. Wants to emphasize that it’s minor inconvenience/discomfort for the sake of community health. Wants to keep mask mandate until the end of the year.

12: Parent of 1st grader w/ underlying health conditions. Requesting mask protocol stay in place until the end of the year.

13: “What if my preconceptions are wrong? We know we can bear the inconvenience of masks.” Says we don’t know the full risk of pulling back risk mandate.

14: Teacher @ SCHS. Requests that mask mandate is not removed. Knows students are frustrated, but she is 20 weeks pregnant. Many teachers cannot be vaccinated, including her. Health is more important than the inconvenience.

15: Parent of SCHS student. Child suffers from mental health issues. Some diagnoses came about because of quarantine. Wants to keep protocols in place because her daughter does not have option of just going back to virtual.

Time for comments from the Board members...

Twomey: Enjoyed the #InspiringMoment about PreK. Talks about the AHS basketball game and swimming teams in Kingwood.

Morrison: Thanks Fagen & Sitton. Thanks community for emailing them in numbers. Says Board reads every one...

...and Fagen/Sitton responds to them. Congrats to KPark theater group and mentions the tiny homes project.

Scarfo: Thank you for all the emails. Thanks Sitton for responding to all of them. “We are not leaving this up to the parents but we do solicit input.” Also mentions...

...tiny homes project. Got to read at Fosters Elem as part of Reading Across America and visited AHS. Proud of the growth of the STEM offerings.

Lapeze: “No comment.”

Engelage: Wishes Lapeze a happy birthday. Talks about getting opinionated emails from both sides of issues.

Lemond Dixon: Congrats to swimmers. Happy birthday to Lapeze. Also liked the video, PreK is very important.

Sitton: Thanks the entire community. Last year, he had a senior that missed senior prom, senior picnic, spring sports, and a delayed graduation. Talks about all the extracurriculars that are now going along. “We have come a long way. We’ve taken a common-sense approach.”

Sitton (cont’d): “At the end of the day, it’s about putting kids first.”

Fagen: The TEA put the decision in the hands of every school board. It’s up to her and her team to gather the data for the Board so they can make their decision.

Fagen: Talking about recycling. District was struggling because people were throwing mattresses, trash, etc. in recycling bins and they were having to get staff to take those out to avoid fines. Looking for other options.

Twomey mentions a house bill that would require virtual education. Says this would support their “virtual academy.”

Sitton mentions HB 434. This would allow CTE credits to replace Fine Arts credit. “This would destroy Fine Arts.”

Action Item 6-A...

Fagen: When there’s a topic that impacts everybody, we reach out for input (teacher & parent surveys). We knew we needed schools open and we wanted to do that in the best way possible.

Fagen: “We deeply value our staff... we care what they feel, what they need.”

Board discussion starts with Twomey.

Twomey: Current statement regarding masks was that we will follow the Governor’s order regarding masks, and if there is none it will be up to families on what to do.

The “shame on you” parent from earlier applauded.

Twomey: I have read “all the scientific material” about this and she is “less than impressed” with data on the efficacy of masks. She would like to craft a policy and not rely on the TEA’s language, because she feels it has some ambiguity and conflicting language.

In passing, Twomey mentions this statue and compares it to masks. I’m no expert on this.

*statute

I know how to spell, promise.

Twomey recommends that we end mask mandate on 4/16 after the next Board meeting.

Scarfo says teacher & parent surveys are an important data point. Says the very large majority is wanting to keep the mask mandate. Scarfo mentions that he has been vaccinated. Says we wont be ready by our next meeting based on vaccine availability/effectiveness.

Says he has heard many parents have said that if we drops the mask, they’ll pull their students from in-person learning.

The “shame on you” parent starts speaking out and gets the gavel hammer from Sitton. “Sorry it’s my first time here,” she says.

Back to Scarfo: Recommends we stay the course and look at this again at the end of April.

Lemond Dixon reads from a written statement.

“I agree that we should get back to a sense of normalcy.” Also glad that we have so many students in-person based on safety. Social distancing can’t happen on campus.

Lemond Dixon’s opinion is that we should keep mandates until the end of the school year. Also said we need more people to have been vaccinated.

Lapeze: I’m tired of the disruptions. We have 2.5 months left. I think we need to leave the policies in place through the end of the year.

Agreed with Twomey we do need to clean up the policy that the Governor’s mandate isn’t the overarching mandate. Repeats, end of year.

Morrison: “We need our kids in school.” Says teachers are worried about removing mask mandate. She thinks we need to keep mask mandate through the end of school year and review for summer school.

Engelage: “This has been an interesting night.” 😂

Wants to revisit this at the end of the month and potentially discuss getting rid of masks before graduation.

Sitton: 96.2% of our students have remained COVID free. We are thrilled to partner with Memorial Hermann to get teachers vaccinated. While the TEA left the decision up to school boards, there are ADA caveats. If in-person educations drops, HISD could lose millions of dollars.

Sitton: I’m 100% in favor of parent choice. It’s not up to them to tell parents whether or not to mask their kids.

But he has to take his personal opinion aside and do what’s best for the community.

Sitton: “I’m all about revisiting this before the end of the school year.”

Contact tracing will be very difficult without a mask mandate.

The timing of teacher vaccinations is an unknown. “Is 4 weeks realistic? Maybe.”

Sitton: To say that we need to wait until summer is not a good idea.

Refining metrics and teacher vaccination will give the community confidence that HISD prioritizes safety. “We will continue to do due diligence.”

Sitton: We technically don’t have a mask policy. With the governor’s mandate gone, we have to make our own policy or follow the TEA.

We need to look at loosening restrictions on outside and UIL policies. We must have a final end date on the new policy.

Sitton: We cannot just unmask overnight. But we cannot just accept TEA guidance but it’s more restrictive than what we’ve been doing. We also can’t afford to take the $6-7MM hit.

If you’re keeping count:

MASK MANDATE UNTIL END OF YEAR:
Scarfo
Lemond Dixon
Lapeze
Morrison

(MAYBE) SOONER THAN THAT
Twomey
Sitton
Engelage

Twomey: Masks cause people discomfort. Says she wears masks “in public all the time.” Repeats her desire to re-visit this until the next Board meeting. Has a proposed policy she is passing out to the Board.

[I didn’t get a copy. I ain’t special.]

Note: Y’all’s DMs and texts are so dang funny. Distracting me! 😂😂😂

Scarfo is now saying that protocols need to stay in place until the Board seems them not needed, but we can’t do anything that reduces community/staff confidence. We are so close to the end of the year, does it make sense to make this change?

Scarfo: I’m really uncomfortable drafting a policy I’ve had 5 minutes to read. Repeats that it should probably go until the end of the year.

Lapeze is upset about being rushed.

The “shame on you” parent exclaims that forcing people to wear masks is evil. Gavel hammer again.

Lapeze repeats he is concerned with variants and disruption.

A few people on the Board tonight have mentioned the concern about losing money, which is a good time to bring this piece back out. houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

I don’t have kids in Kingwood, but from the mentions...

https://twitter.com/BLong_Kinder/status/1369483048539062273

Lori: As of midnight tonight, we would automatically be under the TEA policy.

Points out the problems again. We can go in to closed session for legal advice. Wants to make a motion.

Sitton is adjourning to closed session to get the lawyers’ input. And do I have tacos? No.

The “shame on you” parent is being talked to by 2 police officers. Probably because of no mask.

Anti-climactic. Now she’s going around passing out a pamphlet or something

Here’s the paper.

They’re back.

Also we just passed 1400 followers. Thanks y’all!

Also I’m hungry send tacos ok thanks

Sitton gavels is back in.

Twomey makes a motion:

-Everybody wears masks when you can’t social distance.

-Does not apply to kids under 10, medical conditions that prevent mask, people eating, people exercising, outdoor event spectators, public speakers...

-Students with extreme emotional discomfort or pain can submit a request.

Lemond Dixon recommends that we strike that last point off.

Motion to amend by Lemond Dixon. Seconded by Morrison. Time to discuss.

Lori again points out this statute as her reason for this language:

Lapeze is clearly over this.

Lawyer is expanding on Twomey’s point about the statute. Says it’s specifically about a disciplinary technique.

Scarfo is concerned that the language is a bug mask mandate loophole.

Lapeze agrees that it’s a big loophole and puts a burden on APs and Principals.

Motion to amend passes 4-3. That language is now off the policy.

Scarfo, Lemond Dixon, Lapeze and Morrison voted to remove the language.

Motion is to accept Twomey’s policy as amended. Passes 7-0.

Here’s what passed 7-0.

-Everybody wears masks when you can’t social distance.

-Does not apply to kids under 10, medical conditions that prevent mask, people eating, people exercising, outdoor event spectators, public speakers.

No set end date on this policy.

@threadreaderapp Unroll this beautiful thread for me, please.

Twomey asks that next meeting they re-visit masks and contact tracing without masks. It will be on the next agenda.