Back-to-school season reignites mask wars

Schools across the country are reopening this month, but the mask wars won’t go away.

Superintendents are requiring face coverings to protect children who aren’t eligible for COVID-19 vaccines, and they are doing it in defiance of Republican governors who are ready to protect parental choice in court.

The Dallas Independent School District kept its mandate in place for the first day of class Monday in a rebuke of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and a Texas Supreme Court ruling that temporarily blocked local mandates.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a Twitter message that the Sunday night order covers Dallas schools, but Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said the decision applies only to the county.

“We’re going to keep the mask mandate in place,” Mr. Hinojosa told CNN on Monday. “School districts were not mentioned in the order. My name was not mentioned in the order.”

He is battling the attorney general and governor, who appealed to the high court after lower courts said schools could proceed with mandates.

“We have teams of attorneys looking at this, and we need to protect the safety of our students,” Mr. Hinojosa said.

School officials in Broward County, Florida, plan to defy Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ban on mask mandates when school reopens Wednesday. Three educators in the district have died of COVID-19.

“We believe that we have a constitutional obligation to protect the lives of our students and staff,” Rosalind Osgood, school board chairwoman, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “And we’ve received, you know, threats from our governor. And it’s been really, really dramatic and horrible to be put in this position. But at the end of the day, lives are invaluable and we have to make sure that we use the tools that we can to mitigate the damage of this pandemic.”

The back-and-forth combines two of the most politically volatile issues of the COVID-19 era: mask-wearing and classroom safety. It comes as the delta variant of the coronavirus rampages through the country, particularly in the South.

Texas accounts for 10,000 of the roughly 75,000 people hospitalized for COVID-19 in the U.S. and ranks eighth in the nation in hospitalizations per population, at 37 per 100,000, according to The New York Times tracker.

Florida has the most hospitalizations overall, at 15,000, and per population, at 72 per 100,000.

Reports of pediatric hospitalizations are rising, too, raising questions about how to keep schoolchildren safe as they mingle at the start of the academic year. Children younger than 12 are not eligible for the vaccines, so school officials see masks as their best defense.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, said he regrets signing a measure that forbids schools from imposing mask mandates. Other governors say families should decide whether their children will cover their faces.

“If you’re coming after the rights of parents in Florida, I’m standing in your way,” Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, told President Biden this month.

The Biden administration sided with local schools after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended universal mask-wearing in schools.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told Mr. DeSantis in a letter last week that federal coronavirus funds may flow to school officials if the governor revokes their salaries over the mask mandates.

“We are eager to partner with [the Florida Department of Education] on any efforts to further our shared goals of protecting the health and safety of students and educators,” Mr. Cardona wrote. “If FLDOE does not wish to pursue such an approach, the department will continue to work directly with the school districts and educators that serve Florida’s students.”

Democratic governors continued to mandate COVID-19 precautions.

Departing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said all health care workers and nursing home staff must be vaccinated by Sept. 27, with no testing option as an alternative. Officials in the District of Columbia imposed a similar mandate on health care workers and paramedics with a Sept. 30 deadline.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said his full-vaccination requirement at restaurants, gyms and performance halls will begin Tuesday and will be enforced through inspections as of Sept. 13.

“I am absolutely certain this is going to motivate a lot of people to get vaccinated. It’s going to be a reason for people to get vaccinated, particularly young people,” the Democrat said.

In Texas, Mr. Hinojosa said he asked school personnel to be “benevolent but firm” in enforcing the mask mandate in schools, though he didn’t say how they would compel compliance.

He said a parent could sue him, which would open a legal fight, though he thinks he is on solid ground for now.

“I may get a $1,000 fine,” Mr. Hinojosa said. “But it doesn’t matter what the consequences are … as long as we can legally do it. Once the Supreme Court rules it applies to Dallas ISD, then I will comply. You know, we’ve won in the court of public opinion.”

A separate Dallas County district, in Irving, said it will comply with the order until it gets further guidance.

“Although masks are optional, we trust our employees and all other stakeholders to take personal responsibility,” the district tweeted. “As a community, we have a shared commitment to protecting not only ourselves but also those around us.”