A group of Frisco ISD students has launched a petition asking the district to reinstate its mask requirement.
Students intended to present the petition, which has about 4,400 signatures, to the school board at Monday night's meeting.
"The COVID-19 situation in Frisco ISD has been worsening by the day. It has only been a little over a week since schools have opened up and approximately 670 cases have been reported with many more possibly going unreported," the petition reads.
The petition was started by two students and lays out several steps they would like the district to take:
Reinstate and enforce a mask mandate for students and staff in all Frisco ISD schools from K-12 including special program centers such as the CTE.
Reinstate contact tracing to ensure that proper precautions can be taken by students and their parents.
Require, or at least encourage all students to sanitize their hands with hand sanitizer upon entering class.
Promote and educate students on respiratory etiquette.
Many students attended Monday night's Frisco ISD board meeting.
"Why do we have to put our lives at risk just for an education?" one student at Centennial High School said. "The worst part is that this fight was completely preventable."
"Every time I'm forced to interact with someone not wearing a mask, not vaccinated, I'm putting myself and my brother at greater risk," another student said.
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Several times, opponents of mask requirements shouted over students who were speaking.
"As adults, we need to be modeling conflict resolution and healthy behavior," Frisco ISD School Board President Rene Archambault said. "Please help us do that."
Opponents of a requirement said, while the petition has 4,400 signatures, Frisco ISD has 64,000 students.
"I'm just here to remind everybody we live in Texas," one woman said. "Our governor, on May 18, passed an executive order that prohibits government entities, which includes public schools, from mandating masks."
No mask requirement or update to COVID-19 protocols was on the agenda Monday night. Frisco ISD has posted a list of "disease mitigation strategies" online.
Each Monday, the district posts updated numbers for each campus. Frisco ISD says 1,931 students and 206 staff have contracted the virus.
A seven day rolling average peaked at 109 cases per day August 29 and has since dropped to 28 cases per day. Updated numbers are available here.
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