Texas State Teachers Association: Students Should Wear Masks In School

SAN ANGELO, TX — As summer begins and the start of the new school fast approaches, education agencies are working on finding the safest way for students to return to school even as the number of cases increases daily.

According to the Texas State Teachers Association, there should be “no hurried return based on an artificial start date or any consideration other than safety.”

The association suggests enhanced social distancing measures in place for students and staff, limiting class sizes, and providing personal protective equipment for all students and staff where appropriate.

They also suggest having sufficient thermometers and related equipment for routine temperature checks of students, staff, and visitors as well as having sufficient staff to monitor temperatures, and screen for symptoms, in all entering or leaving campus and to respond to sickness or symptoms in students or staff.

The Texas Education Agency announced they will procure the following personal protective equipment for school districts across Texas,

• 53 million disposable masks for students
• 18 million reusable masks
• 12 million sets of gloves
• 42,500 thermometers
• 600,000 gallons of hand sanitizer
• 1 million face shields

The full list of suggested standards can be reviewed at the following link: TSTA Standards for Safe Students, Schools, and Communities.

The Texas Education Agency has also released guidelines that provide some clarity regarding remote learning in the 2020-2021 school year. The agency also announced it will be providing millions of personal protective equipment to school districts.

According to the agency, there are two options for remote learning: remote synchronous instruction and remote asynchronous instruction.

Synchronous instruction will feature a two-way, live, virtual instruction between teachers and students. Instruction will be provided through a computer or other electronic device or over the phone.

Asynchronous instruction will not require the instructor and student to interact at the same time. This will allow students to complete assignments using online learning, pre-assigned work based on videos or game-based learning tasks.

Concrete details have not been released by the TEA for in-classroom instruciton in Texas schools