West Texas School District Closes Due to Covid

IRAAN, TX — The Iraan-Sheffield Independent School District announced this afternoon the entire school district will cancel school from now until August 30 due to a Covid-19 infection spike.

In Pecos County, Iraan (pronounced "Ira-anne"), population 1,200, sits just west of the bank of Pecos River next to Crockett County on the east bank of the river. Sheffield is an 18 minute drive down river to the south, also in Pecos County.

Pecos County has experienced a surge in Covid cases this month. According to the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the newspaper of record in the Pecos County seat, the Iraan General Hospital reported 21 Covid cases Monday, August 16, that were added to the 23 confirmed cases elsewhere in the county. In Texas, PCR test positives are ‘confirmed’ and antigen tests are ‘probable’. Iraan General Hospital uses the antigen tests, according to the paper’s Covid tracking page. Crocket County’s Covid infections have also risen, though less severely, reporting about 3 new cases per day on a 7-day average.

In Trauma Service Area J, that Iraan and Fort Stockton share with the Midland/Odessa MSA, Covid infection hospitalizations are reported by the state to be near the 15 percent of all patients. Sunday, the most recent day reported, Covid hospitalizations were reported at 14.54% of all patients. There were 241 Covid patients in hospitals across TSA J. For comparison, the Concho Valley’s TSA K reported 6.94% of its hospital patients with Covid as of Sunday.

Iraan-Sheffield ISD Superintendent Tracy Canter announced all district schools were closing in a letter. The two-fold reasoning was safety of the students and staffing shortages due to Covid infections. During the closings, Canter urged students and school staff to quarantine with immediate family.

“They should not be out and about in the community or hanging out with friends,” she wrote.

Canter said no remote learning is scheduled during the closings. The days missed for the next 12 school days can be made up by eliminating early release days and because the district calendar incorporated 3,885 extra instructional minutes over the state mandate for this fiscal year, she noted.

In addition to the school closings, all athletics, to include football practices and games, have been canceled until Aug. 30, according to an email to Midland’s CBS7 from Iraan-Sheffield ISD Athletic Director Berry Bowman.

Iraan in located on I-10, exactly 111 miles by automobile from San Angelo.

Two school districts in east Texas also announced COVID-19-related closures Monday. Bloomburg ISD near Texarkana will close schools until Monday and Waskom ISD just off I-20 near Shreveport, Louisiana will close its elementary school until Monday.

The school closings come at an inopportune time for Governor Greg Abbott. He has so far fought mask mandates by Texas public school districts. The Texas Supreme Court sided with Abbott on Sunday, striking down local mask mandates in Bexar and Dallas Counties. Urban school districts and media outlets may point to these rural school district closings to further push back against Abbott’s ban on local mask mandates.