Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Schools may stay open if student has COVID
Districts to check with education commissioner before closing classroom
The state of Florida wants to call the shots if COVID-19 makes its way into school buildings.
School districts shouldn’t rush to close schools or even classrooms if a student becomes infected, state Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran says. They should check with his office first.
Corcoran’s advice, given to superintendents Thursday, is getting pushback from many health and education officials, who argue that school closures and quarantines are decisions best left to local school districts and health officials, not to bureaucrats in Tallahassee.
Children’s health should not be put at risk for political gains, they say.
The conflict reflects weeks of debate about whether local officials should control their own decisions in responding to the health crisis. Corcoran earlier required school districts to obtain approval from his office for their reopening plans. All school districts must offer inperson classes unless the state agrees otherwise, he ordered.
The state also recently
warned local health directors not to make recommendations to the schools about reopening.
Broward County starts the school year Wednesday; Palm Beach and Miami-Dade start Aug. 31. All three districts will begin the school year online only, but they hope to open for in-person learning soon.
Once they do, they’ve grappled with what to do when a student or staff member tests positive for the new coraonaviurs.
Corcoran advised superintendents to be ’very, very surgical, not sweeping” when deciding to quarantine. He suggested quarantining only the students in a class who were within 6 feet of an infected student, not the entire class. He didn’t say what should happen if a teacher or other staff member is exposed. He said districts would receive more guidance soon.
“The reality is all of you are likely to have a COVID case, and that’s OK because we’re dealing with a population that’s extremely low risk for having serious symptoms, let alone anything else,” Corcoran said on the call.
COVID-19 has already disrupted school districts around Florida and the nation. At least 238 students in Martin County have been told to quarantine since the school year began last week, TC Palm reported.
Corcoran said school officials should call his chief of staff, J. Alex Kelly, or other members of his senior leadership team on their cellphones before making a decision to close an entire classroom or school.
The guidance surprised Dr. Mobeen Rathore, a pediatrician with the University of Florida.
“I’m confused with the approach. It’s like asking a parent to call a teacher before a doctor when they need to make a medical decision,” said Rathore, who is the past president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “If you’re going to talk about a health issue, I think you’d want to talk to a medical person.”
In his call, Corcoran didn’t mention contacting local health officials, but Cheryl Etters, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said that’s written in guidance given to schools and in an emergency order issued last month about the reopening of schools.
“We have said time and time again that districts should consult with local health officials,” Etters said.
Corcoran and Gov. Ron DeSantis have been strong advocates of schools reopening for in-person learning, arguing that the negative academic, social and emotional impact of students being away from school far outweigh any potential harm of COVID-19, which has killed only a few children in Florida.
Their position has put them at odds with some school and health officials, as well as the state’s teacher’s association, which is suing the state, saying local school districts should be able to open when they feel it’s safe to do so.
Although the Department of Education approved reopening plans by Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties to start the school year online only, the department rejected a similar plan by Hillsborough County, where the COVID outbreak has been less severe. That district now plans to offer face-toface instruction in addition to online.
Last week, the state rejected a proposal by Palm Beach County to start inperson instruction with only a few grades. The district will now open its campuses for all students at some undetermined time in the future. School Board members complained then that politics, not public health concerns, were driving the push by state leaders to reopen.
They say the same is happening with Corcoran’s latest guidance.
“I don’t know how someone in Tallahassee is going to impose potentially lifethreatening decisions on us,” said Dr. Debra Robinson, a retired internal medicine physician and a member of the Palm Beach County School Board. “I think it’s an extreme overreach.”
Robinson said children aren’t always stationary in their desks so it’s not always safe to assume a child at the other end of a classroom had no exposure to an infected child.
“We need to approach this with an abundance of caution,” she said. “Not only are people dying, but there are an increasing number of reports on longterm consequences of people infected who may not have severe symptoms.”
She said the easiest way to help prevent a schoolwide spread is to keep children with the same teacher an entire day. That way, only one class would need to be quarantined. It’s an easy approach to do for elementary school students, but she thinks it’s also possible for secondary grades if schools rethink how children are taught.
Dr. Sue Woltanski, a retired pediatrician who sits on the Monroe County School Board, said the commissioner’s position on COVID-19 was inconsistent with how other public health issues in schools are handled.
“You can close a classroom because of head lice, but to do so for COVID, you’ll need to call the commissioner’s chief of staff,” she said.
In Broward County, Superintendent Robert Runcie voiced no objections to Corcoran’s guidance, saying it was consistent with the approach the district would take once schools reopen.
“It reflects our understanding of COVID-19, how it impacts our community and how we will respond if our students or teachers test positive,” he said. “We will continue to take guidance from our medical experts, and as Commissioner Corcoran suggests, be prepared and thoughtful if we decide to close a school.”
But Broward School Board member Rosalind Osgood blasted Corcoran’s guidance, saying she would listen to local health officials and would err on the side of evacuating a school if she felt students and staff were at risk.
“I would vote to close the school and just take the reprimand,” Osgood said. “We can’t be playing Russian roulette with people’s lives.”
Natalia Zea, a spokeswoman for Miami-Dade Schools, said her district plans to make decisions locally.
“We recognize that the local conditions in South Florida, particularly here in Miami-Dade, are far different from those in the rest of the Sunshine State,” Zea said. “As such, we will continue to work alongside the county and local public health and medical experts to guide our local decisionmaking, which ensures the safety and well-being of our students and employees, as well as their families.”
“You can close a classroom because of head lice, but to do so for COVID, you’ll need to call the commissioner’s chief of staff.” Dr. Sue Woltanski, Monroe County School Board member and retired pediatrician