I will be live tweeting tonight's @ArlingtonISD school board meeting, starting at 5 p.m. On tonight's agenda: budget, taxes and plans for how to start the school year amid the #coronavirus pandemic.

The meeting is about to kick off. There will be a closed session at the beginning, followed by public comments on agenda items, discussion and possible action on the budget and proposed tax rate and then discussion and possible action on reopening.

The board expects to return to open session around 6 p.m.

Starting off the open meeting with the pledge. Trustee Kecia Mays asks those watching and participating the meeting to pray for officials handing response to the #COVID19 pandemic.

There are 13 speakers tonight. Mays is reading out the rules, including a restriction to agenda items, trustees cannot respond, derogatory language will not be tolerated and speakers will have five minutes to speak.

The first speaker starts by speaking about an opinion from Attorney General @KenPaxtonTX that local health officials cannot issue blanket orders to close schools, then tells the board about his family and their risks as some school districts welcome students back.

You can read up on that here: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/coronavirus/article244534997.html

His wife works with special needs kids, he says, and he understand the risks teachers will take if they return to school. The speaker says there is an increased risk of suicide, depression, drug use and violence when they do not return to school. He advocates for in-person school

He says the risk of harm or infection of children is low. He points to school systems across the world that have already reopened. He says there are few, if any, instances of students transmitting the virus to teachers in those schools.

Steven Poole, executive director of the United Educators Association, is now connecting as the second speaker. He says Paxton and other elected officials "played politics with the health of our teachers and students." He says the focus should be on health officials, not politics

He says every plan built by the district is "built on quicksand because of the state." He reminds the board that the district gets to decide when to start and how.

Another speaker with the last name Jennifer Darnell, outgoing president of the Arlington nurses association and a nurse in the district. She asks the board to continue with the plan of delaying a return to school. She says students are at lower risk of COVID illness...

... but that they spread the illness. She says that sending kids back to in-person classes is putting everybody in the community at risk. She points out that Arlington has the second highest number of confirmed infections and COVID-19 deaths.

She adds that countries that have returned to school had less spread, good contact tracing and smaller classes. She points to schools in China and a study done in Germany that suggest students can contract and spread the virus just as much as adults.

She also points to a Korean study. She says opening schools back up will result in them shutting back down in a matter of weeks, something she says will not benefit anybody. Next up is Noemi Ogle.

Ogle says she is a teacher and thanks the board for their decision making during this pandemic. She says she is speaking both as a parent and educator. She says she loves her students and coworkers and wants her son to have a good HS experience.

But, she says, it would not be good to return to school yet. She asks the board to follow the data and health leaders who are saying on-campus instruction should not happen yet.

"Let's not be an example of what didn't work," she says.

Jo Anna Cardoza, an Arlington resident and member of St. Matthew's Catholic Church and member of the district's health advisory community, is up next. She says she is concerned about reopening schools in the middle of a health crisis

Cardoza said she has been infected and recovered, but that testing took a long time to complete.

She says that the district is minority-majority and has a high poverty rate. She says those communities are at higher risk than others. It would be bad to bring students back to school at the start of the school-year, she said.

Kathryn Beaver, the next speaker, says she is speaking on the behalf of herself and other AISD teachers who have endorsed her written statement. She says that "schools have never closed, only the buildings did."

She says virtual education is not problematic and Paxton's opinion does not compel schools to open. She says it makes the most sense to follow the guidance of health officials and adds that lawyers and looking into the legal validity of Paxton's statement.

Beaver says students need to know their teachers care for them and are here for them and that is possible virtually in her experience.

Rory Dobbs, who says he is a teacher at Workman, says he is confused and scared about in-person learning. He says Paxton took away his sense of security when he said county health officials cannot force schools to close their campuses.