Dozens of Round Rock ISD students walk out of class to demand more COVID-19 precautions

ROUND ROCK — Students in the Round Rock school district walked out of school and into the near-freezing cold Thursday to call for more COVID-19 precautions.

About 60 students at the Round Rock and Cedar Ridge high schools gathered outside of the schools to emphasize that they do not feel safe in school and want district officials to tighten mask requirements, resume contact tracing in secondary schools, add more COVID-19 testing sites and expand outdoor eating — or offer a virtual learning option.

Other students walked out and went directly home because of the freezing temperatures. They honked in support of the protesters as they drove away.

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The protests came days after Round Rock students created a petition with those demands. As of Thursday, more than 1,700 high school and middle school students had signed the petition, according to student organizers.

“Our goal is to have safer schools,” said Tiernee Pitts, a Cedar Ridge High senior who helped organize the petition and the walkout. “We want tighter COVID protocols and better contact tracing and safety in general.”

District leaders allowed the students to protest, but have not met all of their demands, according to students.

Some students and parents also planned to attend or speak virtually at the district’s school board meeting Thursday night. According to district officials, students who walked out will receive an unexcused absence.

Students staggered the walkouts to match attendance checks at schools so the district did not receive any attendance-based funding from the state for those who walked out.

The Round Rock district, which has an enrollment of more than 46,000 students, has reported 5,699 COVID-19 cases since the spring semester began two weeks ago, according to its COVID-19 dashboard on Thursday. That figure includes cases recorded over the winter break.

'They're not doing enough'

At Cedar Ridge High School, about 30 students walked out and held a protest at 10 a.m. Pitts said she hopes that the district will acknowledge their efforts and make changes by the Thursday night board meeting.

But her mom, who met her outside of the school, said she doubted the district would make any changes because of funding constraints.

“I am just glad that she is standing up for what she believes in, she is standing up for her community, because right now it's all of our jobs to keep everyone safe,” Keiawnna Pitts said. “And I am all for it.”

At Round Rock High School, acting Superintendent Daniel Presley met with some of the student organizers ahead of their protest at 10:30 a.m.

Students said they appreciated the opportunity to speak with Presley — who told them the district was doing everything it could to address COVID-19 concerns amid such constraints as a lack of state funding for virtual classes — but they were not satisfied.

“We understand that there are limitations to what they can do, but our priority will always be keeping students safe, and they're not doing enough,” said Asmita Lehther, a senior and one of the student organizers at the school.

Round Rock district leaders had considered making masks optional this spring, but they informed parents and staff in a Friday letter that the district would continue requiring masks because of the high community spread from the COVID-19 omicron variant.

Still, students say they see many unmasked people in schools because the district has allowed students and staff to opt out without requiring a doctor’s note. The students also want schools to make available to students KN95 and N95 masks, which are now recommended by public health experts as more effective against the omicron variant.

District spokeswoman Jenny LaCoste-Caputo told the American-Statesman that officials have limited contact tracing efforts to elementary schools and students in athletic and fine arts programs because of the challenges of tracing students who move from class to class.

Expanded COVID-19 testing

Students also are asking the district to provide COVID-19 testing at all high schools, in addition to the current testing site at the Raymond E. Hartfield Performing Arts Center, so testing is more accessible to lower-income students who might not live nearby.

LaCoste-Caputo said in a statement that the district was working on expanding testing opportunities, but she did not include details. She added that the district shared students' concerns and will close classrooms if there is a significant number of cases linked together. The district also will close campuses if there are not enough staff to safely serve students, she added.

“However, we have to balance closure decisions with the importance of keeping schools open for a variety of reasons, including the important resources campuses provide daily that many families depend on,” she said.

Students say they want to attend school and learn, but that they have seen COVID-19 take a toll on their classes.

“There's some weeks where there's a mass amount of students and then suddenly there’s half of my class empty,” said Paridhi Bhattarai, a senior at Round Rock High School. “It's just leaving me scared because it's like, ‘Am I going to be the next one? Am I going to be the next one that's going to get sick?’”

Access Education RRISD, a grassroots organization of parents and community members in the school district, also shared plans in an online flyer to rally Sunday outside the Governor's Mansion to demand that the Texas Education Agency "allow our school districts to respond to the COVID emergency."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Round Rock ISD students walk out, demand more COVID-19 precautions