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To go or not to go? Austin high schoolers weigh threat of COVID against more isolation as school year nears

Kate Volti and stepdaughter Cassidy Miller have a lot to consider before deciding whether she should go to high school in person.
Back when being a freshman in high school meant noisy hallways teeming with teenagers and weekends overflowing with dances and games and first dates, Cassidy Miller, 14, had things to look forward to in ninth grade.
But now, as Travis County schools delay opening and attempt to keep the coronavirus from spreading, Cassidy imagines high school to be a warped version of the all-American experience she excitedly anticipated.
Masks on everyone, isolated lunches, Plexiglass dividers, fear of the virus. No pep rallies, no fun.
Cassidy wants to go anyway.
"It's hard not knowing what you're missing out on and feeling like you're not a part of something," she said. "I miss all my friends, a lot."
Weighing isolation against risk
Teenagers and young adults are believed to spread the illness more easily than their younger counterparts, but there are also compelling arguments suggesting the emotional and academic costs of online-only classes could be disproportionately high for older kids.
And so for their parents, the decision on whether to let them go to high school in person or keep them home for online classes is fraught with contradictions.
Pitting academic success and their own mental health against the risk of exposing themselves and their families, older students are in a lose-lose scenario.
"It's such an unnatural and unfair situation to put young people in," said Kate Volti, Cassidy's stepmom, who wants to see a better pandemic situation before she feels comfortable with Cassidy returning in person.
Outside the social aspect, Cassidy also says she needs a collaborative classroom and plenty of structure in order to do well in her classes, which she said was lacking in the spring when classes were online.
Ariela Choiniere, a 16-year-old Austin junior in the marching band, is willing to go online because she believes school isn't safe enough yet—but she's also hoping to find a way to get around it a little bit.
"If there's one day where band says I have to be there, I'm pretty sure [the administration] won't mind if I'm there in school for that day," said Ariela, who faced challenges with the online technology last semester, in part because of her dyslexia.
Considering other kids
Some households also have the complicating factor of younger siblings.
Volti and her husband, Mike, plan to avoid day care and in-person school for their younger son and daughter, ages 8 and 3.
But their learning "pods"—in which a handful of families come to a quarantine agreement and agree to only socialize and learn with each other—would only remain an option if Cassidy doesn't attend school in person, because the other families say they worry about her being exposed and then putting them at risk, Volti said.
"I totally get it. Nobody's doing anything that's wrong or illogical," Volti said. "But it's a really tough situation where it feels like the best interests of one kid is sort of at odds with the best interests of another kid."
Then there's the disconcerting notion of a high school experience—Cassidy calls it "scary"—that will look very different from what students are hoping to recapture by going back in person right now.
"High school and the social dynamics of high school are ingrained in the fabric of our society. We're fascinated, we cling to it. And that's just been turned on its head," Volti said. "Since we can't achieve normal, is the benefit of what is left of that experience really worth the risk?"
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Popular
(Paxton Smith/Instagram)
Paxton Smith’s 2021 valedictory speech at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas wasn’t the same speech she had previously shared with school administrators. She dropped the approved speech and made a case for women’s reproductive rights after lawmakers passed the Texas "Heartbeat Bill.”
Her advocacy made news on NPR, YouTubeTV and in The Guardian. Just over a year later, the “war on (women’s) rights” she forewarned has come to a head as the U.S. Supreme Court voted Friday morning to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending constitutional protection for abortion access.
“It is up to the people to show up and show the courts and the politicians that we won’t sit back and let this happen,” Smith told Austonia Friday morning. “We will show up, we will fight back. Before, we were scared of them, now they should be scared of us.”
Now a University of Texas sophomore and abortion rights activist, 19-year-old Smith said she wanted to give the same speech in the “the most public way possible” to reach “as many people as possible who don't agree that I deserve this right.”
However, she says the response was “actually overwhelmingly positive” and supportive of her cause. According to a recent UT poll, 78% of Texas voters support abortion access in most cases.
The speech opened up further opportunities for activism: she advocated for reproductive rights at the International Forum on Human Rights in Geneva, interviewed with Variety magazine and spoke to tens of thousands at Austin’s Bans Off Our Bodies protest at the Texas Capitol in May.
Smith also serves on the board of directors for the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, a national nonprofit organization that helps fund abortions or medication abortion—like Plan C pills—in all 50 states. Most recently, Smith has been attending protests in Washington, D.C. leading up to the ruling.
“This is land of the free. This is where you get to choose how you live your life,” Smith said. “Overturning Roe v. Wade violates everything that we have come to believe about what it means to live in this country. I think a lot of people aren't willing to accept that this is a human right that is most likely just going to be gone for over half of the country within the next couple of weeks.”
Bracing for the next steps, Smith gave some tips for supporters:
- Find a protest to attend.
- “I would say invite somebody to go to those protests with you, invite a couple of friends, invite people into the movement,” Smith said.
- Talk about the issue on social media—use the platform you have.
- “Have these kinds of conversations where people can just talk about their fears and then find ways to go and advocate for yourself,” Smith said.
- Volunteer at a nonprofit near you.
“I feel like a lot of the reason things have gotten as bad as they have within the abortion rights world is that people are not making a scene, not protesting, not putting the effort into ensuring that the government doesn't take away this right,” Smith said. “I want to emphasize that if you're not doing anything, don't expect the best scenario, expect the worst because that's the direction that we're going in.”
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(Council Member Chito Vela/Twitter)
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion, Friday morning. Moments later, Austin City Council set a special meeting for next month to pass a resolution aimed at decriminalizing abortion.
The GRACE Act, which stands for guarding the right to abortion care for everyone, is a twofold plan submitted by council member Jose “Chito” Vela. It recommends that city funds shouldn’t be used to surveil, catalog, report or investigate abortions. It also recommends that police make investigating abortion their lowest priority.
Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, who co-sponsored the resolution along with council members Paige Ellis, Kathie Tovo and Mayor Steve Adler, said the importance of the GRACE Act cannot be overstated.
“By introducing this resolution during a special session, City Council is doubling down on fighting back for reproductive health,” Fuentes said. “Items like the GRACE Act will promote essential healthcare while enabling individuals to exercise their bodily freedom.”
The act takes an approach similar to when former council member Greg Casar moved to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Ultimately, state law doesn't allow city officials to order police chiefs to adopt specific enforcement policies so the resolution would be a request to Police Chief Joe Chacon. In May, Politico reported that Vela is having "ongoing conversations" with Chacon about the proposal.
Austonia contacted Attorney General Ken Paxton for comment on the GRACE Act but did not hear back by time of publication. On Friday, Paxton celebrated the overturning of Roe and announced an annual office holiday on June 24 in recognition of the high court's decision.
In a press release, Vela said the Texas state government has a history of overturning municipal protections of human rights. Thirty days after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Texas will ban all abortions, with exceptions only to save the life of a pregnant patient or prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”
Still, Vela expressed hope for the GRACE Act’s longevity. Council’s special meeting on it is set for the week of July 18.
“We know this resolution is legally sound, and Austin is not alone in this fight,” Vela said. “We are working with several other cities who are equally horrified by the prospect of an abortion ban and want to do everything they can to protect their residents.”
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