Manatee superintendent updates plan for new school year, allowing full return to campuses

Superintendent Cynthia Saunders has suggested that all Manatee County students have the option to return for the 2020-21 school year, in line with a recent state order, but families would have to request the full-time return to campus.

Likewise, students would have the option to sign up for full-time online learning. Saunders updated the school board during a workshop on Thursday evening, after Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran ordered schools to open five days per week in August.

The superintendent’s updated plan is similar to the original: a full return for elementary students and sixth-graders, and a hybrid schedule for students in grades seven through 12. The older students would rotate between in-person and online learning each week.

However, the new plan allows families to choose the normal five-day schedule, regardless of a student’s grade level, allowing them to make a full return to class.

Schools will reach out to families and learn which students prefer online or in-person classes, and which students will move forward with the hybrid schedule. Rotating between school and digital classes would allow for greater social distancing and cleaning on campus, the superintendent said.

The school board is slated to vote on a final plan July 14, though it was possible — even likely — that details would change before and after the start of school on Aug. 10. During a recent board meeting, Saunders said she planned to review plans on a weekly basis.

“It really does not matter what our overall plan is,” Saunders said. “It’s not going to be ideal for 100 percent of the population. I think it’s our goal to come up with the best plan that can meet the needs of the majority of people.”

“It does not mean that every child is required to attend five days a week, but we are required to give them an opportunity to attend,” she continued.

Campuses throughout Florida closed for the last two months of school, forcing teachers, students and families to navigate online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since that time, infections have continued to climb in Manatee County and throughout the state.

COVID-19 still found its way into local schools and offices after mid-March, when students and many district employees were home, Saunders said. The virus affected 43 district sites and more than 350 employees, meaning they contracted the virus or interacted with someone who tested positive.

Saunders said it was important to remember that COVID-19 affects children, and it could affect the employees in their schools and the adults in their homes. She pointed to data from the Florida Department of Health, which reported 332 positive cases among children in Manatee County as of July 3 — more than 35 percent of those tested.

“Yesterday was summer school,” she said. “We had a person calling the children at Rogers Garden (Elementary) that didn’t attend, just to remind parents. A parent said, ‘My child did not come today because they have COVID.’ But not only do they have COVID, everyone in their house has COVID.”

The state health department reported three deaths and 186 new COVID-19 cases in Manatee County, just hours before Thursday’s school board meeting. There were a total of 4,266 local cases and 138 deaths.

What about masks?

As a precaution, Saunders called for students and employees to wear a mask or face shield when social distancing was impossible, but teachers had discretion over the use of masks in classrooms.

Charlie Kennedy, the board’s vice chair, recommended that masks be required in any school bus or district building, including the classrooms. He received support from everyone except Gina Messenger, the board chair and a former teacher.

“As a teacher, I think about the management issue of masks and face shields,” Messenger said. “I think about, ‘Oh, I’m taking my kids wherever and they all take them off. Now I have the management issue of touching all of them, or all of them touching each other or kids putting on the wrong one.”

Earlier in the meeting, Dr. Jennifer Bencie said masks were a valuable tool in the fight against COVID-19. Bencie, the director for Manatee’s health department, also dispelled a myth that face coverings were dangerous.

“I know there have been rumors about carbon dioxide,” she said. “Mind you, please, that surgeons wear masks all day long for years and years. They wouldn’t be able to do their profession as well as they do if they were having brain dysfunction because of carbon dioxide presence.”

Another precaution was daily temperature checks for employees and random checks for students. The district was unable to check every student, Saunders said, because there was a shortage of equipment.

Messenger then asked if students could easily switch between the various options, such as online and in-person learning, based on their comfort levels.

In response, the superintendent said all students would move at the same pace and learn from the same materials, making online classes a valuable option for concerned families. She also said the digital classes would include live and recorded instruction from a teacher.

“They will see the lesson taught by the teacher,” she continued. “It’s just as if they’re in the classroom.”

However, despite their best efforts, Saunders anticipated school closures throughout the year. She said a district building could be partially or fully closed after someone tests positive for COVID-19.

The affected students and teachers would continue their work online for several days or weeks. Depending on how the pandemic evolves, a district-wide shutdown was also possible, Saunders said.

“Exposure occurs when a positive case was in direct contact with a staff member or student for at least 15 minutes (for teaching and learning environments),” her presentation read. “May have to isolate entire class for 14 days.”

The board’s vice chair was uncomfortable with a full return to school. Kennedy, who preferred to ignore the state order, said he was afraid that COVID-19 infections would spike after the start of school, and that children would spread the virus to their teachers and families.

Board members Dave Miner and Scott Hopes agreed that it was the school board, not the state, that was ultimately responsible for local education and school safety. If the pandemic worsened, the board should reconsider Manatee’s plan to offer five-day classes in person, they said.

“The blood is on us for anybody who suffers from this,” Miner said. “At the same time, we’re supposed to be providing public education for all the children here.”

Hopes suggested an immediate public health campaign to promote better safety measures in the community. If residents wanted schools to reopen, they should help drive down the rate of COVID-19 infections before August, he said, echoing comments by the head of Manatee’s health department.

“You have to help us, everybody in this community, to make that happen,” Bencie said earlier in the meeting. “The schools will be closed down as soon as they open if this continues in our community.”

“Dr. Bencie is exactly right,” Kennedy followed. “We could end this in two weeks if we were all on the same page but, unfortunately, we’re not. We have another government agency in town that is not willing to put a mandatory mask order in place, so that’s a barrier.”

Board member James Golden said he wanted a plan that was “blessed by the Department of Health” in Manatee County, and he urged the board to not be “hamstrung by the Department of Education’s emergency order.”

Golden asked the superintendent whether COVID-19 had killed any district employees, and Saunders said there were no deaths as of Thursday.

“I want to keep it that way,” Golden said. “And God forbid that we open up our schools and wind up with somebody’s kid not being able to make it through this.”

This story was originally published July 9, 2020 at 9:39 PM.