BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Following the implementation of a mask mandate, Brevard Public Schools have loosened their COVID-19 quarantine requirements for masked students in several common situations, according to News 6 partner Florida Today.
Under the new guidelines, students within 6 feet of a known case for over 15 minutes in a 24-hour period will still be subject to contact tracing. But if a teacher can confirm that the students were masked and 3-6 feet away from an infected masked student, none but the ill student will be quarantined.
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The decision has the potential to dramatically lower the number of students required to quarantine by the district.
The volume of quarantined students and staff — which at the beginning of this week reached 15,000 — has posed significant challenges for the district as teachers struggled to teach a large portion of absent students. It’s also caused difficulties for parents who have needed to find childcare or stay at home from work. It also required parents to struggle to find overbooked COVID-19 testing slots for children who often were not presenting any symptoms.
The district has attempted to ease the situation by securing COVID-19 tests for students and employees. Under the districts quarantine rules, asymptomatic students can return to school if they test negative for the novel coronavirus five days after their last exposure; if they can’t be tested, they are required to stay home for 10 days.
The School Board voted 3-2 at an emergency meeting Monday to require masks for all students, employees and visitors over two years old at BPS facilities.
As of Thursday morning, BPS had 7,243 students and staff actively quarantined. In its most recent COVID-19 data update, the district reported 502 new cases and 2,748 new quarantines from Friday to Monday, making for a total of 3,535 cases and 15,046 quarantines since BPS began tracking numbers Aug. 2.
School Board Vice Chair Matt Susin said the change in policy should be an improvement. He has advocated for loosening quarantine requirements in the past and voted against the mask mandate Monday.
“I will say that any lowering of the quarantines that is within a healthy, appropriate measure is is well received, whether we agree with mask mandates or not,” Susin said. “One of the biggest issue we’re dealing with is quarantines and if this is within safe, appropriate guidelines, I am all behind it, and all for it.”
Ashley Hall, chair of the Brevard chapter of conservative parent organization Moms for Liberty, had more mixed feelings about the change in policy. Moms for Liberty has long called for reducing quarantines in asymptomatic children and opposed mask mandates. Hall said a reduction in quarantining children was an improvement, but that she still doesn’t agree with children having to wear masks to get there.
“I don’t think it’s an acceptable trade off if you’re forced-masking small children pre-K and up,” Hall said. “I don’t agree with the quarantine measures and I don’t agree with forced masking ... I know it’s got to be hard for (the School Board). But at the same time, they’re taking away parental rights and parental choice with all of this.”
Hall also said she believed the vote was illegal. Opponents of the mandate including Susin, State Rep. Randy Fine and state officials have said the School Board had no legal right to issue a mandate because a Florida judge who gave an oral ruling against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ prohibition of mask mandates on Friday had not yet signed his final judgement.
DeSantis has said he plans to appeal the ruling and withhold salaries for school board members who defy him. The Florida Department of Education has already withheld sums equaling the monthly salaries of School Board members in Alachua and Broward counties, the two first counties to institute a mask mandate with no opt-out for parents, allowing only for medical exemptions.