As the city of Houston intensifies its push for vaccinations, Mayor Sylvester Turner is shifting focus on getting kids the shot too.

Turner presented the launch of the "Super Saturday Vaccination Day" initiative during a press briefing. It's a citywide effort that starts this weekend to get children who are 12 and older vaccinated before they go back to school.

Turner said every Saturday in August will be dedicated to getting eligible Houston-area students vaccinated. So far, the following 11 districts have at least one school that will be participating.

• Aldine

• Alief

• Crosby

• Cypress-Fairbanks

• Galena Park

• HISD

• Huffman

• Katy

• Pasadena

• Spring

• Spring Branch

The city is aiming to get 17 school districts on board, Turner said.

As the superintendent of the largest school district in the state, Millard House took several questions from reporters on COVID protocols and said he doesn't intend on going against Gov. Greg Abbott's ban on mask mandates.

Has the school district considered [a mask mandate?] Why or why not?" asked a reporter.

"We have not," responded House. "But we do know that masks are important, and masks will be strongly encouraged for all of our schools. It's not something that we've done, in terms of, as you said 'bucking' the governor, but we are strongly encouraging masks for all of our employees and all of our students."

When asked if House would consider taking a penalty for defying the governor's order on masks, he said "it's just not something that we've moved forward to do."

"Our hope is that we'll see as many people move forward to be vaccinated and many people move forward and do the responsible thing and wear masks as well. That's what our hope and expectation is," said House.

He said the district supports parents' input and concerns and said guidance from the Texas Education Agency on the use of masks and vaccines will be released soon.