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TASA Asks State for Consistency, Clarity & Local Control
Schools Prepare for their Openings
Amid Questions and Uncertainties
State officials spent the summertime lead-up to the start of the 2020-21 school year providing schools with a sometimes dizzying array of frequently confusing and conflicting advice and directives.
The situation was summed up in a July 30 statement by the Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA) that called for state leaders to provide more clarity, consistency and local control for the 2020-21 school year.
Confusing …Complicated…Frustrating
“Please stop attempting to micromanage every community. The changing guidelines and requirements throughout the summer have been confusing, excessively complicated, and frustrating,” TASA stated in the first of its three-point list suggesting how state leaders could better help local schools make the 2020-21 school year as safe and educationally productive as possible.
The most frequently cited complaints by TASA and other public school advocates of the inconsistent messages from the state focused on the mid-July assurances by the TEA that public schools could be closed pursuant to an order by their local health departments, advice that was undercut by a letter (July 28) by state Attorney General Ken Paxton to the mayor of Stephenville.
Paxton’s letter provided nonbinding advice that local health agencies don’t have the authority to issue blanket orders closing schools, except in quarantining facilities that have been actually found to have been infected or contaminated due to a communicable disease, such as COVID-19.
The TEA quickly (on July 29) issued updated guidance that “blanket school building closures ordered by local public health authorities for preventative purposes are not lawful” and they will not receive funding if they fail to follow the directive’s from the state in choosing to close schools.
The Texas Tribune estimated that 18 local health authorities had issued orders delaying in-person instruction because of coronavirus concerns.
Updated Guidance
Updated guidance subsequently issued by the TEA (on July 21 and reinforced on Aug. 21) allows districts to operate through their first four weeks of school offering remote instruction only, that can be extended for another four weeks of remote instruction only based on a vote of the school board and the receipt of a waiver from the TEA. The TEA can decide whether to grant school closure waivers beyond eight weeks on a case-by-case basis. School boards have the authority to close campuses for up to 5 days to sanitize the facility where a COVID-19 case has been confirmed.
With limited exceptions, parents have the right to determine if their children will be instructed remotely or in-person during times when schools must offer on-campus instruction.
With flexibility given to when schools can start, many of the state’s smaller- and mid-size districts were reporting start dates as early as Aug. 3, while larger districts are waiting until after Labor Day to start school.
Teacher groups are also reporting their members are greatly concerned about what they say is a lack of attention to their concerns over the safety of themselves and students, although the governor issued assurances that they and their students will be safe.