The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton formally called for the cancellation of the Beeville Independent School District’s mask mandate in a letter it sent to the Superintendent Travis Fanning Sept. 16.
Austin Kinghorn, general counsel for the attorney general’s office, called for Fanning to rescind the district’s local policy regarding face coverings while threatening legal action against the district by the attorney general.
“I ask you to rescind your local policy requiring masks in public schools or, alternatively, not enforce it pending the Texas Supreme Court’s disposition of the cases before it involving this issue. Otherwise, you face potential legal action brought by this office,” Kinghorn wrote in a letter dated Sept. 16.
Fanning confirmed that he received the letter via email at approximately 5 p.m. on the day the letter was dated.
“We knew that it was highly possible just given the fact that several other school districts that started our mask mandates long before we did had received them,” Fanning said when asked if he was expecting to hear from the attorney general after enacting the mandate.
The policy directly violates Gov. Greg Abbott’s Executive Order GA-38, which prohibits all governmental entities in the state – including counties, cities, school districts and public health authorities – and all governmental officials from instituting mask requirements.
Fanning said he also wouldn’t have been surprised had he not heard from the attorney general, based on guidance he had received from the Texas Education Agency (TEA).
“We were under the perception that maybe we wouldn’t get the letter ... based off what TEA had shared,” he said.
The letter, which the Bee-Picayune obtained through an open records request, contained just four paragraphs, but bluntly explained the stance of the attorney general on GA-38, a stance that is based on recent court rulings that supported the order in the face of various legal challenges.
“The governor’s executive orders ‘have the force and effect of law’ and supersede local regulations,” the letter read. “Courts have previously agreed. Moreover, the Texas Supreme Court has now issued three orders staying lower court orders seeking to enjoin the governor from asserting his authority to preempt local face-mask mandates. Most recently, the court stated that its stay order applies to ‘[t]his case, and others like it’ and that the status quo of gubernatorial oversight over the wearing of masks at both the state and local levels ‘should remain in place while the court of appeals, and potentially this court, examine the parties’ merits arguments.’
“The Texas Supreme Court has spoken. Local court orders purporting to enjoin the governor’s authority may not be enforced while appellate courts consider the underlying merits of these cases. This office will pursue further legal action, including any available injunctive relief, costs and attorney’s fees, penalties, and sanctions – including contempt of court – available at law against any local jurisdiction and its employees that persist in enforcing local mask mandates in violation of GA-38 and any applicable court order.”
Fanning said he will discuss the letter with members of the district’s board of trustees at an upcoming meeting.
As of Sept. 18, no special meeting of the board of trustees had been announced by the district.
Fanning said he, along with the trustees, would decide after that discussion the district’s plan regarding face masks.
He also said that he in no way was wavering in his belief in the importance of masks as it relates to the health and safety of the district’s students and staff.
“It does not change my feelings on the importance of masks and that we should have them mandatory to keep our students and staff as well as our community safe,” he said. “It doesn’t change my perspective in that regard.”
He pointed to the significant drop in positive cases across the district as proof that the mask mandate was having a positive effect.
In the five-day week from Sept. 13-17, Fanning said the district totaled 17 positive cases.
Before the mask mandate, Fanning said, the district was averaging more than 100 positive cases per week, or more than 20 per day.
“I truly believe and I’m confident that the masks have made a difference when you look at our numbers in BISD and the number of positive cases we’ve had,” he added.
“I know people will argue against the science of it, but I have truly witnessed the significance for what it can do for our numbers and what it can do for the health and safety of our students and our staff when we implement that mask mandate.”
The second-year superintendent said he respects the rule of the governor and respects the rule of law, but that he feels the health and safety of the students and staff he’s tasked to protect is paramount to him.
“I get the law. I totally understand that. I consider myself to be a law-abiding citizen,” he said. “But, I also am held with the duty that has been entrusted to me by our board of trustees as well as our community to keep our students and staff safe. And so that’s what we’re trying to do with this.”
He then called on state leaders, including the governor, to listen to the scientific experts who have continually expressed the opinion that masks work and help slow the spread of COVID-19.
“The mask mandate has absolutely nothing to do with politics for me,” he said. “It has everything to do with the well-being and the safety of our community and our faculty, staff and students.”
•kkeller@mysoutex.com•