High school sports spectator rules amid pandemic

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“My son is finally able to play football! Is there anything I need to know about being a high school football spectator during COVID-19 (Palm Beach County)?”— Susan, BoyntonBeach

High school football season typically starts in August but has been delayed due to COVID-19. Palm Beach County’s opening games are this weekend at three sites: Jupiter High, Boca Raton High and Wellington High.

Therearelotsofnewrules for fans, so be prepared: Players are offered a limited number of guest tickets; you’ll have to be pre-approved. You will only be allowed to park if you have a ticket. And guests can no longer purchase tickets upon entrance; they must buy them in advance using “GoFan,” a high school ticketingwebsite.

Bring a photo ID, proof of a digital ticket for the event, a mask (no neck gaiters or bandannas allowed), and a clear plastic bag as a purse. They’re going to take your temperature and check you out with a metal detector before they take your ticket.

Concession stands will be closed. Each spectator can bringonewaterbottle, andit “should not be frozen.”

And don’t be late: No one will be allowed in after the start of the thirdquarter.

Broward’s rules will be similar to Palm Beach’s. Therewillbelimited, pre-approvedguests, andonlyspectators with tickets will be allowed to park. Admission won’t be permitted after the startofthethirdquarter. The only difference: Theremay be some concession sales. Onlypre-packageditemswill be available.

There’s been a lot of stress, aswellasthreats, over whether the state will withhold money from school districts that delayed their re-openings due to COVID

19. Eventhoughschoolshave been open for a few weeks now, the question remains.

Unfortunately, the state Department of Education is not committing one way or the other at themoment.

“The department wants to review attendance and enrollment data from the official student headcount before making any decisions,” DOE spokeswoman CherylEtters toldme.

The state gives money to schooldistrictsbasedonhow many students are enrolled, so the districts are always hoping for healthy headcounts.

The initial numbers aren’t looking too good: In Broward, there are about

215,000students, adeclineof about 7,600. In Palm Beach, enrollment is 187,776, a loss of 7,300.

Schoolswere supposed to report their official enrollments during the week of Oct. 5 to 9. Broward schools began opening on Oct. 9, and continued into the next week.

Some school districts, includingPalmBeach, which opened Sept. 21, said they wereworriedthestatewould slash funding if they delayed their school openings too long, andopenedsoonerthan theywould have preferred.

While Gov. Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran allowed school districts to delay the start of the school year, theythreatenedtowithhold funding todistricts that delayedtoo long.

Broward ended up being the last district in the state to open for in-person classes; it’s not clear whether any punishment will followthat distinction. thestandardprocedurefor thecoronavirusatallstaterun testing sites and that Gov. Ron DeSantis said that tests will be provided to schools. Does thismean that the recommendation for schools in Florida is to nowuse the rapid test for children and employees? Whataretheprosandcons to using the rapid test vs. the PCR test for schools? TheNBAuses a rapid test, but I have heard of some false positives. What test will schoolsnowuse going forward?”— AmySherman, Fort Lauderdale

The state has sent schools

60,000 rapid testing kits, made by Abbott Laboratories and called BiNax Now, that offer COVID-19 results in 15 minutes through a nasalswab. BiNaxNowis an antigen test, which detects proteinsonthesurfaceofthe coronavirus.

In South Florida, Palm Beach County schools will use the rapid tests but Browardschoolswill not.

Here’s what the Health Care District of Palm Beach County, which supplies more than200nurses to the county’s schools, said about thenewtests:

“TheHealthCare District is working closely with the School District of Palm Beach County and the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County to implement rapid antigen

COVID-19 testing using the Abbott BinaxNOWAgCard once they are provided by the stateof Florida,” spokeswoman Robin Kish said. “The Health Care District’s school nurses have been trained on how to provide this rapid test if screening results indicate students should be tested and if parental consent is received. It takes approximately 15 minutes for the test to indicate results on the spot.”

She added: “Dr. Belma Andrić, the Health Care District’s chief medical officer, says if used appropriately for symptomatic people during the first week of infection, the FDA-approved rapid antigen test would be effective for students since the goal is to prevent transmission as soon as possible.”

The antigen tests are considered less sensitive than viral tests, known as RT- PCRs, which detect genetic material, require specialized equipment and take a minimum of two hours to process.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rapid tests are useful in large settings such as nursing homes and schools.

“In (these cases), there may be value in providing immediate results with antigen tests even though they may have lower sensitivity than RT-PCR tests, especially in settingswhere a rapid turnaround time is required,” according to the CDC.

But Broward will not use the rapid kits. According to a school district spokeswoman: “If an employee or student needs to get tested for COVID-19, the Florida Department ofHealth-Broward will direct the individual to the nearest of 10 priority testing sites, which currentlyhave a turnaround time of 24-48 hours from specimen collection. The DepartmentofHealth priority sites administer thePCR Test, which is considered the optimal test forCOVID

19.”

She continued: “Public health experts have informed the district that rapid test kits, which were provided through the state’s Office of Emergency Management, donot negate the need for full testing at a state site or a private health care provider.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis said Florida will receive about

6.4 million rapid kits in the coming months. Nursing homes, senior communities and community testing sites will also get the kits. They appear to be thewave of the future, so hopefully there won’t be too many false negatives as their use expands.

Howare schools minimizing spread?

”We are hearing troubling accounts of high schools’ handling of

COVID-19 cases. It seems that administrations keep this criticalinformation underwraps, quietly notifying only those individuals who have been in close contact with the infected person. Weknow this isn’t the only way

COVID-19 is spread. Have you looked into what individual schools have done tomake rooms safe for kids and teachers? Have they installed dividers on every desk? Have they spaced the desks six feet apart? When do they disinfect each classroom? Who is responsible to disinfect betweenclasses in middle and high schools? Where do kids eat lunch? Have effective air cleanersbeen installed in every room?” — Evey andMark Groothuis, Delray Beach

I’ve visited a few schools over the past fewweeks, so I do have a feel for the efforts they’re making to keep the campuses clean and keep the kids socially distanced. It’s hard for me to tell, though, if these efforts are consistent and where they fall short.

I didn’t see dividers between kids’ desks, although the desks were six feet apart. Each classroom is disinfected daily by the custodial staff, and bathrooms more often. In Broward, high school students are supposed to disinfect their desk areas before they leave for their next class. Are teachers enforcing this rule? That I don’t know.

Lunch depends on the school; some kids go to the cafeteria, others are eating outside, others stay in their classroom. I visited an elementary school in Plantation where desks were moved into the cafeteria, each six feet apart, for socially distanced lunches; a middle school I visited in Boca Raton has kids sitting in designated seats at the cafeteria’s long tables so they are no longer eating in close proximity.

Broward andPalm Beach schools have installed

MERV-13 air filters, which trap the smallest particles, inmost of their classrooms. Otherwise, classrooms have a “minimum of

MERV-8 or 9,” according to Broward schools.

Are these precautions working? There hasn’t been an epidemic at an individual school yet; according to the online

COVID-19 dashboards in Broward and Palm Beach, no school has had more than four cases as of now. A Palm Beach schools spokeswoman said every case in Palm Beach has come from outside the school.

“We haven’t had a single case of a person infecting another person at a school,” she said.

When will Palm Beach County teachers get a raise?

“When will teachers in Palm Beach County get their raise with the money that was allocated to each district in the state by Gov. Ron DeSantis? My son is a second-year teacher in Palm Beach County. His counterparts in Broward have already gotten their raises and he’s wondering why he hasn’t gotten his.”— M.W., Loxahatchee

Palm Beach County teacher salary negotiations usually go more amicably than Broward’s, but it looks like it’s the reverse this time. Broward concluded its negotiations last month, and the parties agreed to bring up the lowest salaries to at least $47,500, as required by the governor, with everyone getting a raise ranging from about

$1,000 to $3,700. DeSantis signed a bill in June releasing $ 500 million to boost starting teacher pay and another

$100 million for raises for those alreadyworking. The exact amount of the raises would have to be negotiated with teachers unions.

In Palm Beach, the negotiations are proceeding, with no immediate end in sight.

“We are currently in discussions with [ the union] on how to administer the money from the state for teacher raises,” said Vicki Evans-Pare, the district’s labor relations manager. “The district has offered to raise the starting salary to $47,500 with all teachers receiving a minimum of 1.7% increase. The teachers’ union rejected the initial offer and provided a counter offer. The parties are continuing to negotiate.”

Before the new money came in, teachers in Broward and Palm Beach had started at about

$41,000. Theimpactwasless dramatic in Miami-Dade, which used money from a voterreferendumtopaynew

teachers$46,125.