Attendance Falling, Cases Rising
September 8, 2021
Across all CCISD facilities, COVID-19 cases are higher than ever recorded. This is believed to be caused by the removal of safety protocols that were in place last school year.
CCISD is currently operating at Stage 3 protocols district-wide. The conditions that must be met before going into stage 3 are as follows: the attendance rate is below 90% of historical average or if there is a community outbreak of COVID-19.
As of Sep. 2, attendance rate was 88.69% of the historic average. This put CCISD into stage 3, which calls for additional health protocols during school activities at affected areas and highly encouraged use of masks.
Majority of cases have been seen in elementary schools, where students are all too young to get vaccinated against the virus.
According to the district COVID-19 dashboard, elementary school students make up 44% of student cases. CCISD provided an extra form for elementary school parents in the 2021 back-to-school forms to indicate whether their children were to be wearing masks at school or not.
The highest number of cases at one school documented so far is at Clear Falls High School. As of Sep. 2, they have 77 active cases of COVID-19 out of about 2600 students.
There have been student organizations calling for change. According to their Instagram page, the CCISD Students for Safety is a “student-run campaign working to ensure student and staff safety while maintaining high educational standards.”
On Aug. 16, they posted to their Instagram urging students to email CCISD leaders to mandate masks.
“We demand that Clear Creek ISD issues a mask mandate and fulfills their promise, as stated in their strategic plan from 2020 to 2025, to ‘focus decisions on what is best for students’ and ‘base decisions on facts and data,’” the post said.
At the time of the post, pediatric ICU beds across Texas were full.
“This week, an average of 40 children were hospitalized every day with COVID-19, which is the highest rate in a year,” the post said. “We do not want the next one of these children to be a member of the CCISD community.”
Due to CCISD no longer being required to follow Gov. Greg Abbot’s executive order, the CCISD Students for Safety committee believe that the district should bring back the mask mandate.
“On August 13, Clear Creek ISD issued a statement declaring that the district will ‘continue to comply with Gov. Abbott’s Executive Order which prohibits school districts from mandating face coverings,’” the post said. “However, the district is no longer obligated to do so because of Harris County’s recent restraining order allowing districts to mandate masks.”
Currently, the school district is standing by their decision that students and employees are not required to wear masks, but are strongly encouraged to.
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