PARIS, Texas (CN) — A Texas state judge blocked a school district’s clever attempt at requiring face masks by including them in the dress code to get around Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s Covid-19 mask mandate ban.
Lamar County District Judge R. Wesley Tidwell, a fellow Republican, issued a temporary restraining order against the Paris Independent School District late Monday after concluding Texas’ lawsuit is likely to prevail on its merits.
“The court finds that defendants do not have authority to issue or enforce a facemask mandate in light of Governor Abbott’s executive order GA-38,” the two-page order states.
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the school district’s board of trustees last month after it amended the dress code out of concern for “the health and safety of its students and employees.” Texas is grappling with a fourth wave of infections due to the highly contagious delta variant and lingering hesitancy towards vaccines.
Paxton applauded the judge’s order as “just the first step in restoring order” in Texas against “rogue” local officials defying Abbott.
“The law is clear, and this superintendent knows this, yet he has no issue continuing to waste precious state resources on impossible lawsuits instead of providing for his students,” Paxton said in a written statement Tuesday.
Located 100 miles northeast of Dallas, the Paris ISD did not answer telephone calls Tuesday evening after office hours seeking comment on the judge’s order. The school board defended the amended dress code last month, saying it was meant to “mitigate communicable” illness.
“The Texas governor does not have the authority to usurp the board of trustees’ exclusive power and duty to govern and oversee the management of public schools of the district,” Paris ISD said at the time. “Nothing in the governor’s Executive Order 38 states he has suspended Chapter 11 of the Texas Education Code, and therefore the board has elected to amend its dress code consistent with its statutory authority.”
The board had planned to reconsider the amendment at each subsequent monthly meeting.
Judge Tidwell will rule on whether to make the temporary restraining order a temporary injunction after a hearing scheduled for Sept. 21.
Paxton’s office has sued eight other school districts that issued mask mandates in defiance of Abbott. It sued the Richardson Independent School District in suburban Dallas on Monday, claiming trustees there are deliberately “flouting” the mask mandate ban that “has the force and effect of state law.”
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