Texas attorney general says local health authorities cannot "indiscriminately" shut down schools

by Aliyya Swaby, Texas Tribune


Local health officials do not have the authority to shut down all schools in their vicinity while COVID-19 cases rise, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in nonbinding guidance Tuesday that contradicts what the Texas Education Agency has told school officials.

After Texas ordered schools to reopen their classrooms this fall, county and city public health officials began to push back, ordering all public and private schools in their areas to stay closed through August and in some cases September.

The officials cited a state law giving health officials authority to control communicable diseases. But Paxton said in the letter that "nothing in the law gives health authorities the power to indiscriminately close schools — public or private — as these local orders claim to do. ... It does not allow health authorities to issue blanket quarantine orders that are inconsistent with the law."

The governor’s executive order allowing all school districts to operate overrules local mandates to close, Paxton said. Local health officials have some authority to order schools closed if people in it are infected by COVID-19, but not as a preventive measure.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/28/texas-schools-ken-paxton/

Eff you, Paxton. You belong in prison for the felonies you committed.