LONGVIEW, Texas — Longview ISD's school board held a special meeting to talk about their mask mandate and how it's going.
District Superintendent James Wilcox shared what its been like three days in.
"We've had one student that's refused to wear a mask out of our 8000 plus students," he said.
While not an easy decision for the district to make, the high number of cases in the district and around Longview led the school board to support a mask mandate.
Board President Shan Bauer said after looking at the current numbers and the limited number of coronavirus cases from last year with a mask mandate in place this is something they needed to do.
She added it has the support of every board member.
"It was no doubt in our mind that we needed to make sure that we put something in place to further protect the students and our staff," she said.
Longview ISD remains the largest East Texas school district to have such a mandate in place while a couple of others have more limited requirements, like wearing them on buses and other school vehicles.
Bauer said she's not surprised.
"We pride ourselves here at Longview Independent School District as a proactive district instead of a reactive one," she said.
While masks are required throughout the day, for outdoor activities like sporting events, they're not required.