Fort Worth students return to school. Parents deal with conflicting messages on masks
Classrooms across Fort Worth welcomed back all students in-person, with no virtual option, for the first time since March 2020 when the pandemic shuttered schools, signaling a cautionary start to a year officials said is about catching up on academic work.
But the pandemic isn’t over. With surging cases filling hospital beds and a more transmissible variant of the virus, debates over mask requirements, contact tracing and virtual learning continue to be front and center.
Legal questions over mask requirements have bounced back-and-forth in recent days, leaving some parents uneasy about the safety of their children as the school-year begins. Superintendent Kent Scribner enacted a mask mandate after hearing from dozens of parents and receiving a letter from medical professionals last week.
But just days before school began, the mandate was struck down after another group of parents challenged it in court. Attorneys representing those parents argued that the virus was unlikely to result in death for children and referred to an assessment of a clinical psychologist that students would, with masks, miss critical nonverbal communication such as seeing a teacher’s smile.
As school began Monday, many students were wearing masks anyway.
“We certainly are going to honor the ruling of the court,” Scribner said outside T.A. Sims Elementary School Monday morning. “But I am very encouraged because overwhelmingly students are voluntarily wearing masks.”
Few students were seen without a mask as they took pictures in front of the school, and walked with their parents to find their classroom - something that has not been allowed for over a year due to the pandemic.
An 8-year-old student, Mateo Muñoz, posed for a picture with his younger brother, Noah, before going inside.
“I’m used to the masks, but I still hate it,” Muñoz said.
But Mateo’s father, Erick, said his son understands why the mask is important. He had to be quarantined last year after being infected with the virus, an experience he said was “not fun.”
Regardless of whether the school requires it, Erick Muñoz said he will continue to adhere to recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which along with the Department of Education has urge masks in all school environments.
Other parents are worried about the mandate being rescinded, along with how the district has reported cases already impacting campuses on the first day.
Alex Vorse, an outspoken critic of the district’s health policies in recent weeks, decided his daughter, who has underlying health conditions, would not attend school after seeing on the district’s online tracker that a number of teachers at his daughter’s campus had tested positive for the virus.
“All we have wanted this entire time is to stay safe and stay in the district,” he said. “Really what they are telling us is get out of the district or get sick.”
Vorse is part of a group of parents that have staged a series of protests in recent days, including a mock funeral outside of FWISD Board President Tobi Jackson’s house. He and other parents plan on attending a special meeting Tuesday called by the board to discuss litigation surrounding the mask mandate and Gov. Greg Abbott’s order, banning such mandates.
Deborah Rivas, another parent, said she is fine with the masks, even if they are a bit uncomfortable, as long as her son doesn’t have to attend school online.
District officials are not offering online options this year, and have stressed that in-person instruction is necessary to improve the lackluster academic performance seen across the district and the state last year.
Grade-level instruction
Andrea Harper, the principal at T.A. Sims Elementary, said she is excited for students to be back in the classroom. The key to getting students to where they need to be academically, Harper said, is to have students in-person, and exposed to grade level appropriate content.
“Whenever we need to scaffold or support students in their learning, we absolutely can and will,” Harper said. “But we are providing instruction on grade level from day one to ensure that we accelerate their learning.”
That model of acceleration will be reflected across the district, according to Olayinka Moore-Ojo, the district’s director of Early Learning.
Extra support will be available for struggling students outside of the classroom as well through resources like “Saturday Learning Quest,” a program for students in grades 1-3 who are performing in the bottom quartile in reading or math and professional tutoring for other low-performing students.
For students to benefit from the programs put in place however, they have to be in school.
Enrollment increase
District officials are hoping for a return to pre-pandemic enrollment levels after a 6,000 student drop last year - mostly in younger grades that occurred at the height of the pandemic.
“A great deal of the dip in enrollment was preschoolers and kindergartners whose parents voluntarily kept them home for safety reasons,” Scribner said. “Now that we’re in person fully, we think those numbers will recover and... they need to because students need to be in schools receiving instruction.”
Numbers will shift as students register on the first day, but some schools like Sagamore Hill Elementary are almost at capacity in the youngest grades. School Librarian Miranda Quintero said all but a few spots in pre-K are full in pre-K, kindergarten, first and second grade.
“We are definitely pretty full for the amount of teachers that we have,” Quintero said. “We did end up losing some teachers at the end of the year, so that may be kind of skewing it, but we definitely have filled up our lower (grades) and we have some more that are enrolling.”
Quintero said that despite some confusion over the masks leading up to the first day, parents, teachers and students are all excited to be back in-person.
District leaders and parents agree that for the youngest students in-person instruction is necessary.
Graham Brizendine, who has two young children in the district, had to make that choice last year.
“It is really hard with a pre-K kid who can’t read to be able to follow along on a Zoom call,” he said. “They don’t even know the right button to click, because they can’t read.”
So last year, with safety precautions in place, Brizendine sent his youngest child to school, with hand sanitizer and a mask. He said this year he is disheartened by how the precautions in place last year have become politicized.
“This became too much about the adults and too little about the children,” he said. “That’s what really frustrates me is I want to do anything that I can to protect not only our kids, but the other kids who are in school.”
This story was originally published August 16, 2021 at 12:00 AM.
