SAN ANTONIO — North East ISD announced on Tuesday that they will be holding an emergency board meeting on Thursday to discuss COVID-19 and a possible mask mandate.
This comes after a tumultuous few days in the legal battle between city leaders in San Antonio and Texas Governor Greg Abbott over whether or not local authorities have the right to enforce mask requirements in schools.
On August 10, Bexar County Health Director Junda Woo signed an order requiring all students, instructors, staff and visitors to Bexar County schools to wear masks, "regardless of vaccination status."
On Sunday, the Texas Supreme Court issued a stay against mask mandates like the one implemented by Bexar County officials, temporarily blocking it. At that point NEISD said that masks would no longer be required in school buildings, but strongly encouraged.
On Monday, a judge in Bexar County sided with the city and issued a temporary injunction to allow the mask mandate. NEISD, however said that they would abide by the ruling of the Texas Supreme Court for now anyway.
"Based on our legal guidance, we believe that the Texas Supreme Court’s stay order issued Sunday night applies to this order as well, and was intended to ensure that Governor Abbott’s order banning mask mandates remain in place until the Supreme Court rules on the case. In addition, we expect that the Governor will appeal today’s temporary injunction immediately," the district said in a release.
"Rather than putting our community through constantly changing guidance as legal proceedings continue, we will continue to strongly encourage the use of face coverings while we wait for the Texas Supreme Court to decide whether today’s temporary injunction is enforceable."
In response to the possibility some school district’s may not comply with the order, city attorney Andy Segovia said Monday night that they will be having further discussion with the local superintendents.
“There’s a lot of confusion, we don’t want to play ping pong with the public. We would expect all the school districts, because we got the temporary injunction to comply with [Metro Health Director] Dr. Woo’s order but right now there is no set thing in terms of what we will do, for example, if they say they’re not going to comply with it. I’m going to leave it, hopefully that the discussion that will be held this evening with the school districts that they will be convinced it’s the right thing to do,” Andy Segovia, the city attorney said.