Only 3 students have tested positive so far

Posted on September 30, 2020

While the total number of local students currently listed as under quarantine by the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) rose to 67 this week, the Taylor County School District still has no positive staff members and only three students who have tested positive for COVID-19.

Local school officials say they are doing everything in their power to control the spread of the virus, but stress they cannot control circumstances or contact that may occur after school.

Last week 31 students who attend Taylor County Elementary School (TCES) were quarantined under a recommendation from FDOH.

It was the first large group quarantine of students due to COVID-19 since the school year began five weeks earlier.

That number grew to a total of 67 this week, but school officials point to after-school activities being the possible source of the virus spreading.

“As a school, we are doing everything we can to keep our students separated and socially distanced in order to cut down on the number of students who come in contact with one another while at school,” TCES Assistant Principal Rachel Poppell said.

“We realize that our students have lives outside of school and participate in activities and programs away from school. With each event or program our students attend there will be different contacts involved,” Poppell added.

“Our quarantine number jumped drastically throughout this past week due to interaction and contact that occurred outside of school. When the community sees or hears information that says 30-something kids are quarantined from Taylor County Elementary School, they immediately assume the contact happened at school, and that is not always the case,” Poppell said.

“We were overly cautious about identifying the close contacts within our school from one student who was present during their contagion period, and we still only had to identify 10 children. As of Friday, I believe our quarantine number was somewhere around 52 students. But only 10 of those 52 students were identified for recommended quarantine from school contact,” Poppell explained.

“The school district is maintaining a proactive and transparent attitude with the community, as evidenced by the district website constantly updating any confirmed COVID-19 cases,” Poppell said.

“In order to maintain privacy and not violate HIPPA, that information is vague and does not always give a detailed depiction of the actuality we are dealing with. For example, as of today (Monday, Sept. 28), the district website lists TCES as having one quarantined employee, which is not accurate,” Poppell said.

“We must consider there is a delay in the information the DOH and administrators provide the district, but to our knowledge we have not had a quarantined employee since the first week of September. However, we do have individuals — for example, substitutes who may work for the district that can fall into that category, but may or may not have been present on our physical campus,” Poppell said.

“Also, with student positives we must consider if the student was present at school during their actual period of contagion. When we are notified by DOH of a positive case, they give us a time frame of when and if the student was even present at school,” she said.

“Due to our social distancing practices and the number of actual students who were on campus in the same classroom during student contagion, we had to quarantine only 10 students. That number has since increased due to that student’s activity outside of school,” Poppell added.

“We published a comment to our parents via our school DOJO page and our Facebook page last week with the hopes that they would maintain confidence that we are doing all we can while their children are in our care. However, we cannot control circumstances that occur outside of school time,” Poppell said.

“We must continue working and brainstorming with other community members and organizations to develop a plan that meets all of our needs. Just like us, after-school programs and daycare centers depend on student attendance for funding,” Poppell stated.

“Our families need these programs as much as they need our schools, so in an effort to ensure we are all able to remain open and in operation, we must all continue working together. Placing blame will not benefit any of us. We simply hope to provide a clearer understanding for the community on how the identification of close contacts works for us at the school,” Poppell continued.

“We will continue doing our part to keep students socially distant from one another, provide PPE and sanitizers for students and staff, keep students in small cohorts and clean and disinfect often. With the increase in the effects of COVID on our campus, we have been sanitizing and fogging our common areas and classrooms more frequently.

“The transportation department has provided us with employees who spend several hours a day with their only responsibility being to wipe down door handles and high frequency areas. The district maintenance staff has been amazing at ensuring we have all necessary cleaning supplies. Not once have we asked for something and they not provided it for us,” she said.

“The entire district has pulled together in a way that is helping us to ensure that we can continue providing a quality education for all of our students. Our MIS department and teachers have been extremely flexible and fast acting in getting our students on quarantine the resources and technology they need to be successful. Our ESE staff are working extremely hard to ensure they can accommodate our students with special needs while they are home on quarantine via face-to-face technological platforms,” Poppell said.

“Moving forward, Principal Courtney Bethea and I would like the entire community to know we are always here to talk and answer any questions or concerns. We always welcome feedback and brainstorming to help us better serve our students, while keeping them safe and healthy,” Poppell said.

As of Monday, Sept. 28, the local public school district had no positive staff members, five staff members under quarantine and just three positive students district-wide across all six school campuses.

Taylor County Primary School (TCPS) had one positive student, three quarantined staff and 16 quarantined students.

TCES listed no positive staff, two positive students, one quarantined staff members and 50 students under quarantine.

Taylor County Middle School had one student under quarantine and Taylor County High School had one staff member quarantined.

The district administrative office, Steinhatchee School and Taylor Alternative School had no positive cases and no staff or students quarantined.

Due to state and federal mandates, the schools and district cannot release any information regarding what grade or class the quarantines impact.

Subscribe to our e-Edition and read the rest of the story. Already a subscriber? Click here to sign in.