Graham ISD makes masks optional for students, staff within district

After making the decision to maintain the Graham ISD mask mandate in March, the Board of Trustees made the decision Wednesday to take away the school policy and make it optional. School boards throughout Texas were given the authority by the Texas Education Agency in March to decide their local mask policy.

The school board confided in Young County Local Health Authority Dr. Pat Martin and Dr. Steve Jones on the school board for what they should do regarding the mask mandate. Both said the numbers have dropped locally and teachers have had the opportunity to get vaccinated through both area providers and through the local opportunity given at Graham High School in March for free.

“We feel like it is time to change back and make it kind of a voluntary thing. The numbers are really good right now. We can always revert back. I do feel like wearing a mask has had a huge impact. Clearly, the lower number of flu cases that we have had in the United States this year is directly because people wearing masks which is proof that wearing masks slows down virus spread,” Dr. Martin said. “Wearing a mask has saved a lot of health issues across the country and certainly in Graham, but even aside from that, if you feel like masks didn’t work, it’s helped us not have to quarantine large numbers of students which we would have been forced to do. When we had cases in classes we would have to quarantine entire classes for weeks at a time and so there were a lot of reasons that we had the mandate and why we had to do that and I fully support that we did it, but I think at this time it is very reasonable to back off it.”

For the rest of the story, see the April 17 edition of The Graham Leader.