1) How many current administrators and 12-month employees have tested positive for COVID and in what schools?
- How have you tracked this number (if you have)? What are the procedures and policies for administrators, teachers, and staff who test positive for COVID-19? Currently, there are no guidelines or guidance within Jacksonville for those who have tested positive. There is very little if any contact tracing in the community. Will you contact trace in the schools? For instance, if a MS student in a class tests positive and you become aware of it, will all her/his classmates and teachers then be quarantined? That is a CDC best practice.
2) Is it true that MS and HS buildings will only be using half of the spaces in each building to save on cleaning costs, thereby negating the social distancing opportunities from only having half the students on campus at one time? If this is true, why has it not been made clear to the public? When parents and students and staff hear about students rotating through the school so only half are there on a given day, the easy assumption is that schools will be optimizing social distancing. We have a right to know if this is not the case. Anything else appears intentionally deceptive.
3) Do you recognize the racial implications for your reopening plans when people of color are being infected and dying at rates 3x that of whites? Those harrowing statistics are true BOTH national and here locally in Duval. Our nation and community has not only been gripped by the COVID pandemic but also the pandemic of systemic and structural racism. What is a policy that puts at-risk Black and other people of color at a rate 3x that of white people if not an example of systemic racism?
- Mandatory mask-wearing is essential here. We cannot depend on the guidance of a politically compromised mayor.
- Reference; https://www.
nytimes.com/interactive/2020/ 07/05/us/coronavirus-latinos- african-americans-cdc-data. html?action=click&module=Top% 20Stories&pgtype=Homepage