COLLEGE STATION, Texas — College Station ISD held its first day of classes Tuesday. While parents are thankful students are back in the classroom, some wish that the school district would make better plans to protect their students from the new surge of the Delta Variant.
The school board said they are doing all that can be done for now to protect every student who walks through their doors.
As of Monday, prior to the start of school, two teachers tested positive for the virus. The school will keep an updated dashboard on their webpage including a count of positive cases in the school and meet with the Texas Education Agency every Thursday.
They have set in place to notify a student’s homeroom teachers if they are in contact with the virus. As for now, there is no threshold on classroom cases.
If a student has been in contact with someone who has tested positive, and they chose not to test the student must wait the full 2 weeks before returning to school if the test showed negative, they could come back after 5 days.
Parents, students, local health authorities, and some board members are pushing for masks to be mandated.
"Without a mask requirement you have decided to allow the increased potential for the spread of COVID-19” said parent Michelle Johnson.
"I do recommend that mask works indoor K-12 I recommend that kids on busses are wearing a mask as well and I recommend that we have thresholds of where we need to have further mitigation factors," said, Dr. Seth Sullivan, Local Health Authority.
"The science really does show over we have a year and half of data that they really do make a difference but they really make a difference when everybody is wearing them," said Trustee Kimberly McAdams.
With no way for the school district to give us an update on the number of people vaccinated on campus, it is up to you to choose if your student wears a mask and/or gets vaccinated.
The 2021-2022 school budget was approved this evening, along with a new tax rate Which is being reduced by 1.38 percent this year.