ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — Due to an influx in the number of COVID-related calls at schools across the county, school officials in St. Johns County have decided to open a COVID call center.
The call center is a partnership with Flagler Health+, and started operating Tuesday, Sept. 7. Staff said they get about 60 to 70 calls per day ranging from questions about contact tracing to testing to quarantining.
“What this call center was designed and set up to do was specifically for, we've reached out to let you know that the Department of Health has said that your close contact, you need to begin quarantining for seven days, here's when your exposure date is, here's when you can be able to return to school without a test," Kyle Dresback, Associate Superintendent for Student Support with the district, said.
Dresback said one of the reasons they started the center was to take the stress off of the schools.
"With the volume [of calls] the school nurses are receiving, they're not just receiving questions about COVID, it's also about what's going on with their child in the clinic," he said. "So, being able to take this off allows the school nurse to be able to focus on the students that are in the school building," he said.
Dresback said another reason for the center is to help families get answers quicker.
"There's one nurse at each school, and so you know, adding to that call volume, you know, if you have two or three families that are calling in, we want to be able to try and do that timely. Sometimes, because of the students that are coming into the clinic, they're not able to get that information to them until later in the day," he said.
"So, you're talking about a five to six-hour delay, depending on when that family calls. Having the call center, they're able to get that phone call, usually within about two to three hours, and with what next steps should they be able to do," Dresback said.
John Eaton, Executive Director of Care Connect+ with Flagler, added that the center acts as support for families.
"We're an ear and a resource for any of those unmet needs to help support that journey ... to provide some support along the process that can be a little overwhelming for someone's first time going through it," he said.
According to Eaton, the center is manned by Care Connect staff, employees from the hospital's auxiliary, staff from the school district and staff from the sheriff's office.
The district also announced this week it hired six nurses from an outside company to help with contact tracing. Dresback said these nurses will operate out of the district's central office and will log contact tracing lists from teachers, and help find out who close contacts are. That's something, he said, that school nurses are doing now.
The changes come after some parents said they weren't told about COVID cases in their child's classrooms fast enough. Some parents are also calling for a student mask mandate. School leaders recently adopted a mask mandate for all adults who enter school buildings but don't have one for students.
Dresback said they're asking principals to implement ways they can minimize exposures in their classrooms, such as not mixing groups of students. As for a mask mandate for students, that's not on the table right now, he said.
“Right now, we're in a situation where the governor has directed where we are with masks, and so that's where we're at at this point," Dresback said.
As of Thursday, 383 students currently have COVID, and 878 are quarantined. Fifty-eight teachers currently have COVID, and 29 are quarantined.
Those numbers are down from 404 students with COVID Wednesday, and 974 quarantined. The employees' numbers were down too, from 66 positive Wednesday and 36 quarantined.
The call center is open Monday through Friday on days school is in session from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. You can call 904-819-1101 with questions.