FORT WORTH, Texas — Tuesday’s special meeting of the Fort Worth school board appears poised to be another powder keg.

Dueling efforts that encourage people to sign up to speak during the public comment period of the meeting are circulating on social media.

One is a petition created by Max Krochmal, a parent of two FWISD students, TCU professor, and co-chair of the district’s Racial Equity Committee. He is encouraging the district to require all students, faculty, staff and visitors to wear masks at school at all times except to eat. The petition also calls on the district to offer a virtual learning option for unvaccinated students, particularly those with underlying health conditions. On Monday afternoon, the petition had 691 signatures.

Another online call to battle is an effort to rally people to speak out against mask mandates, a return to virtual learning and some of the other precautions school districts across the country took last year in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. That effort is being led by Carlos Turcios, who recently organized a march against critical race theory — and a deluge of people who spoke out against the decades-old academic framework that explores how racism is embedded in U.S. policies and systems.

Tuesday’s meeting is once again poised to pit speakers from the political left and right against each other, each believing they are battling on behalf of the best interest of school children. In the wake of the discussion over critical race theory, local school boards have increasingly become the focus of conservative activism.

Setting the stage for Tuesday’s showdown is the Fort Worth school district’s announcement of its COVID-19 safety protocols, which was released on Monday. According to the document, the district will “strongly encourage” mask-wearing, conduct contact tracing and require teachers and students to quarantine after coming in close contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19.

Those protocols go beyond state guidance released last week, but they stop short of requiring masks on campus. District officials say they can’t enforce a mask mandate because of an executive order issued by Gov. Greg Abbott barring districts or any government entity from enacting such orders. Despite those orders, other major urban districts in the state are implementing those kinds of mandates.

Last week, the Texas Education Agency released updated COVID-19 guidance for school districts across the state. Under the new guidance, districts no longer have to inform parents or conduct contact tracing after a positive case.

In cases in which districts do conduct contact tracing, parents of students who were in close contact with someone who tested positive may still choose to send their children to school in person. Districts must continue to keep students who are actively ill with COVID-19 at home.

The district’s protocols, updated Friday, include contact tracing, targeted cleaning and sanitation of areas that may have been contaminated. Unvaccinated people who come in close contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19 will be required to quarantine for 10 days.

Clint Bond, a spokesman for the district, said the district defines “close contact” as being within six feet of someone infected with COVID-19 for 15 minutes or more. So in cases where students test positive for the virus, their entire classes wouldn’t necessarily need to quarantine, he said.

Students who are quarantining will be given excused absences. Vaccinated people who show no symptoms of COVID-19 won’t be required to quarantine after close contact.

The new protocols “strongly encourage” students and teachers to wear masks, stopping short of requiring mask-wearing outright. In a statement, Fort Worth Superintendent Kent Scribner said safety protocols like hand-washing, distancing and masking would help the district keep in-person learning on track. But Scribner said the district couldn’t require masking in schools.

Abbott’s order, issued in May, bars school districts from creating policies requiring mask-wearing on campus. Violations of the order carry a $1,000 fine.  Last month, Abbott told KPRC-TV in Houston that he wouldn’t lift the order despite rising case counts across the state. Abbott said parents should decide whether to have their children wear masks in school, but he offered no advice for parents of children who are too young to be vaccinated.

Other large districts in the state are pushing back on the order.

Last week, Millard House II, superintendent of the Houston school district, said he plans to bring a proposed mask mandate before the district’s Board of Trustees on Thursday. Monday morning, Dallas Superintendent Michael Hinojosa announced during a press conference that the district would require students and teachers to wear masks. Hinojosa said the district’s health and safety situation “has gotten significantly more urgent” due to the highly transmissible delta variant.

On Monday, Cook Children’s Hospital reported 16 patients were being treated for COVID-19. The hospital’s seven-day rolling positivity rate stood at 12.3%. The hospital’s positivity rate has been climbing since mid-June. In a release published Monday, hospital officials said they were concerned the new school year will drive hospitalizations up even further.

Parents are hoping for answers at Tuesday’s meeting. One parent in an online forum said she was withdrawing her children from FWISD in light of the weakness of the new protocols.

“Unenrolling my children because of underlying health issues,” the parents said. “On the news last night, it said FWISD is having a job fair because they need to hire 260 people. School starts on Aug. 16 and they need to hire 260 people?”

Another parent hoped people would organize around the issue and pressure the district to create safer rules.

“I cannot be the only parent who has an unvaccinated child with an underlying health condition,” the parent said. “There has to be a better way. I am hopeful that concerned parents will organize around this issue. With the unprecedented transmissibility of the new COVID delta variant, and the inability of schools to require masking, we risk the infection of an entire generation of unvaccinated children this fall. For some of those children, a positive COVID case could mean hospitalization or worse.”