JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Duval County Public School leaders are "pivoting" their contact tracing policy to better inform families of COVID-19 cases in elementary schools, the district announced late Friday.
A spokesperson for the school system said the changes come because the Department of Health in Duval County hasn't been able to "keep pace with the contact tracing caseload since school began."
DCPS said in the statement around six p.m. Friday to date, there have been 492 presumed positive cases of COVID between students and staff since the beginning of the school year which started Aug. 10. According to the district's dashboard around that time, 416 cases are students, and 76 are staff members. The numbers have increased by more than 200 for student cases, and by more than 30 for staff since Monday of this week.
By 8:30 p.m. Friday, though, DCPS updated the dashboard. There are now 589 total cases in the district. 503 of them are students, and 86 are staff members. Most of the student cases are in elementary schools. Since Monday, student cases have increased by 322 and staff by 45.
There have also been 189 students and adults who have had to quarantine because they were in close contact to the infected person, DCPS said, as of Friday at 5:50 p.m.
"Under state law, The Florida Department of Health has the responsibility to confirm the positive case, conduct the contact tracing and case investigation, and notify families who are impacted," the update from DCPS reads.
"The Department has informed the district that it has assigned additional personnel to school cases, but the rapidly spreading nature of the COVID-19 Delta variant currently exceeds the department’s capability to respond to all school cases within a meaningful timeframe," it said.
As a result, the district will implement two strategies starting on or before Aug. 25. The first strategy school leaders call "Classroom Communication." If a case impacts an elementary school, families of students in the class of the infected person will get a letter telling them about the case. It won't be a quarantine order, the district said. Instead, it will inform families "of the increased possibility that their student may have been in close contact to a presumed positive case of COVID-19."
The second strategy involves classes switching to online learning if there are multiple COVID cases. If there are two or more COVID cases in an elementary school class within a seven-day period, DCPS said, the class will transition to online learning for two to seven days.
DCPS is working on establishing laptop and hotspot distribution centers across the area for families if classes are moved online. Those details, the district said, will be announced soon.
The district said the changes are only for elementary schools because they're not eligible for the vaccine. A couple of parents, however, brought it to First Coast News' attention that some sixth graders are 10 and 11-years-old.
One parent wrote to FCN's Kailey Tracy, "current sixth-grade students are as young as 10 and deserve the same disclosure that elementary students are receiving."
Another parent said, "Just because 12 years and up can be vaccinated does not mean everyone is. The school has an obligation to keep kids safe and parents have a right to know. I want to know. The letters for elementary school are a good start, but not acceptable for the rest of the parents."
FCN brought these concerns to the district and is waiting to hear back.
DCPS in its announcement Friday encouraged parents to "provide consent" for their children 12 and older to get the vaccination.
The new strategies, DCPS said, will be in place through mid-September. Then, the district will re-evaluate "the capability of the Department of Health to support contact tracing and adapt if necessary."
The changes come after an outcry from countless parents and some teachers. Before the district's announcement Friday, FCN spoke with some of those parents and teachers.
One employee, who wanted to remain anonymous, told FCN last year they got emails and sent home letters when students were exposed and quarantined. This year, so far, she said, they hadn't received anything and her school has had multiple cases of COVID.
That employee said she emailed the school board and Superintendent Dr. Diana Greene about her concerns about the DOH not keeping up with contact tracing. She said she told them "our kids are in danger with this opt-out [mask policy]."
"We rolled the dice and we sent them to school," mother of four Jennifer Richardson said. "My third-grader was exposed."
Richardson said her son is ok, but Richardson, who has stage four metastatic breast cancer, tested positive for COVID yesterday. She received another COVID test from Mayo Clinic, however, and it came back negative. Richardson said her doctors told her her first test, a take home test, was a false positive.
“I have not left my home to go anywhere other than school drop-off and pick-up. I have groceries delivered. I don't go to restaurants. I have not been anywhere in a year and a half in an effort to avoid this situation," she said.
According to Richardson, her son was exposed at school more than a week ago and she still hadn't heard from the Health Department or the school system as of Friday afternoon.
"I'm just fortunate that I had a friend in common who reached out and let me know what was going on," she said.
Richardson said her family thought about doing virtual school, but three of her four children are enrolled in magnet schools and would lose their seats there if they did virtual school.
"The choice to send my kids back to school was a gamble. For us, for our family, it was really a challenge, and we felt like it was a risk every single day, but the alternative was losing those magnet seats," she said.
While some parents say their school administrations are telling them when someone tests positive, others said they've heard nothing, like Richardson.
“Schools have been telling family, parents families for decades, that, 'hey, someone in your class has lice.' This would be the same kind of communication, 'hey, someone in the class has exposed your children to COVID.' That's all we need. I don't see why that is unreasonable," she said before DCPS made changes to the contact tracing policy.
“I know that I have cancer, and I know it's important for me to know if my child has been exposed. I don't know how many other moms are out there who are in the same boat. I don't know how many kids are immune-compromised. I don't know, and they have a right to know that their kids have been exposed," Richardson said.
Richardson took things into her own hands. She created Facebook groups for each of her kids' schools for parents to contact trace.
“I opened it up to parents and said, 'Hey, you know, let's just voluntarily tell each other when we have a COVID positive case in our homes, or when we're aware of an adult that has, you know, interacted with our kids that's positive,'" she said.
"We're trying to keep it as anonymous as possible by using room numbers to indicate classes, not teacher names. Not student names," Richardson said. “This is our only hope right now. We don't have time to wait on the Department of Health. They are way too behind. They're not equipped, unable to keep up with the demand of our school district," she said before the district's changes.
After hearing the news about the changes in the district's policy, Richardson said she is glad they made them.
Richardson is vaccinated and is hoping her case of COVID remains mild.
"I'm definitely nervous. I immediately reached out to my oncologist at Mayo last night asking for some advice," she said. "Hopefully it stays mild for me. That is, you know, my greatest wish, but I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen next," Richardson said.
FCN reached out to the DOH in Duval County about contact tracing for the school system but hadn't heard back at the time this article was published.