BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Facing angry parents on both sides of the mask mandate divide, Brevard Public School officials told Tuesday night’s school board meeting that they are working overtime to find testing options for thousands of students who are currently quarantined after they were exposed to somebody with COVID-19.
School Board Vice Chair Matt Susin said at the beginning of the meeting that the board would ask the county commission and the Brevard Emergency Operations Center to help the district establish more testing so that quarantined students can return to school as soon as possible, according to News 6 partner Florida Today.
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The promise follows the decision to expand testing at the closed Madison Middle was expanded to include quarantined students from Astronaut High School, Oak Park Elementary School and Pinewood Elementary School as well.
In addition, a testing site was opened for students and staff from Space Coast Junior/Senior High School, Atlantis Elementary School, Challenger 7 Elementary School and Enterprise Elementary School can receive COVID-19 testing at Coastal Community Church in Cocoa.
Superintendent Mark Mullins described the difficulties the district has had securing testing for students and staff. He said five testing companies the district reached out to had told administrators testing might be available in four weeks. But students need to be tested now, not in four weeks, he said.
“We recognize the necessity for testing,” Mullins said. “Our hands are somewhat tied when demand exceeds supply, but I don’t think that it’s a fair characterization that Brevard Public Schools has not been working overwhelmingly to secure testing.”
The meeting attracted protests from parents for and against COVID-19 mitigation policies such as mask requirements and quarantines.
Brevard Public Schools Assistant Christine Moore said the district has “hit a wall” when it comes to the number of quarantines of students and staff and is working night and day to track cases. The district retook control over counting its cases after the Florida Department of Health became overwhelmed and faced delays during the surge of the virus.
“In addition to the documenting that we did last year, we added a new category this year, and that category is how many of our employees are in the hospital,” Moore said, breaking into tears. “We did not have to do that last year.”
As of Tuesday, 387 staff and 1,862 students have tested positive and one school, James Madison Middle School in Titusville, has been closed. Quarantines now total 11,704 for students and staff.
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School Board members have discussed making changes to quarantines and bringing more testing options to parents so that students can return to school earlier. Asymptomatic students can return to school with a negative test five days after their last contact with the virus, but otherwise must remain out of school for ten days. Parents have struggled to find testing for their children, and many have waited days for an appointment.
Assistant Superintendent Christine Moore said 139 people were tested Monday at Madison Middle, with 12% testing positive. On Tuesday, 18.6% out of 193 people tested positive.
Belford, who was at Madison Middle School on Monday, said 70%-80% of students were not experiencing symptoms.
“When we say we shouldn’t be quarantining healthy kids, the truth of the matter is that those kids may be healthy, but they also may be spreading,” Belford said. “And they may be spreading to the students who are immunocompromised. They may be spreading to a teacher who is immunocompromised. They may be spreading to a pregnant teacher who is high risk.”
Members of conservative parent group Moms for Liberty have called for the district to share data about how many students who are quarantined end up testing positive. Susin has also said he would like the district to track quarantine numbers and submit them to the state to ask Florida Department of Health to reconsider its rules on quarantines.
Board member Katye Campbell said the school district this year must follow Florida Department of Health regulations when it comes to quarantine. Last year’s guidelines were not binding in the way that the current rules are, Campbell said.
Susin questioned Moore about whether it was possible for the district to calculate how many quarantined students eventually test positive. Moore said that she does not believe that the district’s system for tracking quarantined students would allow it, and that if there was a way, it would not be simple or easy.
“I’m going to disagree that it would be easy,” Moore said. “If that is what you are going to choose to direct Dr. Mullins to see if we can do it, we’ll figure it out. But I disagree. Nothing has been easy. And I doubt that would be either. Possible? Maybe.”
Susin said he believed data showing that quarantines were ineffective would be the only way to convince the FDOH to loosen its rules on quarantines. He also stated that some Florida school districts are not following FDOH rules to the letter; due to difficulties with contact tracing, Duval County has said it will send letters home to families warning them if a student’s classmate tests positive, then switch the entire class to online learning should another student test positive.
About 50 protesters holding signs against quarantines, masks and other COVID-19 restrictions gathered outside the district headquarters before the meeting, and about seven held signs in support of masks or vaccinations. Unlike at the Aug. 10 meeting, protestors for and against masks remained mostly separated and civil.
Most of the roughly 30 speakers at the three-and-a-half hour meeting were against mask policies and wanted to see quarantines in some way reduced. But a few urged the board to institute a mask policy despite threats from Gov. Ron DeSantis to financially penalize districts that do. On Tuesday night, Orange County joined eight other Florida districts to institute a mask policy that did not allow parents to opt out.
The first speaker at Brevard’s School Board Meeting, James Madison Middle School teacher Susan Wray, spoke in favor of a mask mandate. She said that her son last year was very ill from COVID-19 last year. He had no preexisting conditions, but suffered a collapsed lung due to scarring from COVID-19 infection.
“It is the absolute duty of our educational systems to stand up for facts and science, and to lead as an example to the community for which we serve,” Wray said. “Failure to do this discredits our value to society. It is shameful and it is embarrassing. ... We’ve lost teachers in our district that we know and we love. As a teacher who cares deeply for my community, for the students and for the coworkers who are all really like family to me, to see them suffer is unbearable.”
Many speakers described challenges with quarantine, calling on the board to end quarantines of healthy children. One Moms for Liberty member read out results of a survey of over 100 families who had their children quarantined. Parents struggled to find childcare, and students struggled with depression as they faced extended periods of isolation from their friends and social activities. The Moms for Liberty survey found that the vast majority of students did not test positive.
Katie Delaney, another member of Moms for Liberty, said instruction opportunities for children at home were inadequate.
“I saw a post today of a mom struggling with their kid because they’ve missed two weeks of algebra to imagine missing two weeks of algebra two,” Delaney said. “You might as well fail the kid now. They’re not getting work sent home. They’re not getting any help. There’s no eLearning, there’s no nothing. Stop quarantining our healthy kids.”