Rebekah Morr is KERA's Morning Edition producer. She came to KERA from NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., where she worked as a news assistant at Weekend All Things Considered.
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Masked third-graders work on computers at Tibbals Elementary School in Murphy, Texas, Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Teachers and students across Texas return to the classroom next month, and for the most part things will be back to normal or at least the way they were pre-pandemic.
Classes will be conducted in person and many districts have already ditched pandemic-era health and safety policies.
But with coronavirus case numbers and hospitalizations trending upward again across the state, some educators have concerns about how safe it will be to return to in-person learning this fall.
Ovidia Molina is the president of the Texas State Teachers Association. She said Gov. Greg Abbott s order in May barring schools from issuing their own mask mandates, is effectively the state prohibiting schools from keeping their staff, students and community safe from the coronavirus.
Our Students Are In Danger : Some North Texas Teachers Are Concerned About Returning To Class keranews.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from keranews.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Masked third-graders work on computers at Tibbals Elementary School in Murphy in December. Tibbals is in the Wylie school district which appears to have not announced any specific COVID-19 protocols for the coming school year.
Many schools are still working out the details about how they’re going to keep students, faculty and staff safe amid rising coronavirus case numbers and hospitalizations.
On top of that, schools cannot require students are faculty to wear masks, per an order issued by Gov. Greg Abbott last month.
So how exactly do schools plan to keep students and teachers safe when they return to the classroom next month?