GISD board votes to keep masks within schools

The Graham ISD Board of Trustees made the decision Wednesday to keep the mask policy they have in place following the guidelines set by the Texas Education Agency. The board amended the policy to not require masks during any outdoor school activities and will meet during their April board meeting to reevaluate the mask policy.

On the board for GISD is Young County Local Health Authority Dr. Pat Martin, who has been a key figure in the local response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Board member Brandon Bates suggested Dr. Martin provide advice to the board on how the district should handle the situation.

“I think what the governor is saying is that masks are not mandated anymore and you have more and more people that are vaccinated, more and more people that maybe already had it and we are definitely seeing a lot less cases,” Dr. Martin said. “I would think waiting a month and kind of seeing where we are at might be a better idea than taking a drastic action right now. One thing that wearing masks has done for us at school is kept us from having to quarantine large numbers of people at a time and that’s kind of a nice thing, but the cases have gone way down.”

For the rest of the story, see the March 13 edition of The Graham Leader.