Olympia High School will shift the entire school to LaunchEd@Home learning for the next two weeks after several positive COVID-19 cases were confirmed and connected through Florida Department of Health contract tracing, according to an announcement from Orange County Public Schools.
All 922 face-to-face students and 190 staff members will return to campus on Monday, Sept. 21, school officials said. There will also be no extracurricular or co-curricular activities.
There are 156 students and staff that have been identified as having direct contact with the six individuals who tested positive and one is pending, according to officials.
According to FDOH, these cases are a result of community spread and not spread at school. The Florida Department of Health in Orange County provided specific information to the families directly impacted.
Wendy Doromal, the president of the Orange County Classroom Teachers Association, told News 6 that she’s thankful the public was notified of the confirmed cases.
“We expect that many more schools will be closing,” Doromal said.
Doromal said the choice to return to in person teaching has a higher risk than the current benefit. She also said that she receives messages on a daily basis from teachers concerned for their safety in the classroom.
“It’s sad to me because we don’t want to see someone get seriously ill or heaven forbid lose their life because of this unwise decision,” Doromal said. “We all know that students don’t teleport to their desks. They have to pass through hallways and they don’t sit in their desks, they get up and they move and they retrieve things.”