School Board lifts mask requirement

The Socorro Consolidated School District Board decided to make face masks optional in Socorro schools after listening to comments from the public Monday night.

The school district announced masks would be optional in all Socorro schools after the Governor lifted the statewide mask mandate for indoor public settings Thursday. A subsequent announcement was made on Friday that the School Board would have to determine if the district’s mask mandate could be lifted and would hold a special meeting to do so.

Family doctor and mother of a young Parkview student, Dr. Teresa Jones, spoke in support of keeping the mask requirement. She pointed out that universal masking is still recommended by the CDC and the American Academy for Pediatrics and that, especially with cloth masks, universal masking provides better protection than individual masking.

“COVID is in the top 10 causes of childhood mortality, even though it’s only been here two years. Even though an individual child’s risk is low, especially if they have no underlying conditions, there are lots of children in our school district who have obesity, who have asthma, who have immunocompromised or developmental delay that put them at high risks for complications of COVID.”

Masks decrease viral load, which can reduce the severity of illness if children do get sick with COVID. She asked the Board to at least consider compromising by continuing mask requirements at schools with children under age 5 who cannot get vaccinated. She also recommended the Board create a committee to help them navigate quick policy changes as the COVID-19 situation continues to change.

Two other mothers and a grandmother spoke in support of lifting mask requirements. Erica Trevino has a diabetic child at San Antonio School and is 100 percent against masks.

“If myself as an adult doesn’t have to go out into the public and wear masks, neither should my kids and I’m strong on that opinion,” she said.

“I have a father who died of COVID in January,” Paula Sichler told the Board. “It’s just what we live with now. I really believe that our kids are having issues with learning because they can’t see faces.”

Superintendent Ron Hendrix also recommended the Board lift the mask requirement.

“One year of bad teaching takes three years to overcome,” he said. “Three years of bad teaching is almost never overcome. In this case, it’s not a teacher who is doing a bad job. It’s a teacher not being allowed to do the job they’re able to do because the kids can’t see their faces.”

The Board discussed what it might look like if they kept masking in place for just students too young to be vaccinated, including on the bus, but ultimately unanimously voted to make face masks optional. The room applauded when the Board passed the motion.

“We sit here as a board and we beg for the state to give us the power to make our own decisions,” said Board President Dave Hicks during the discussion. “I think in the same regards we need to give what we can back to the parents and get them back involved.”

Board member Tara Jaramillo said she was concerned about unvaccinated students and, “I also have to weigh the educational support for those children. I am a speech language pathologist and I know that communication and the ability to communicate with a child depends a lot on the ability to make eye contact, to look at their face and for them to look at our face and I have been extremely concerned about the children born during this time who are now three and have not had the opportunity to look at faces.”

Board member Michael Hargather asked the Board to place a discussion on the next meeting agenda on creating a committee that could make COVID policy recommendations and keep the district agile in its responses to COVID-19.