Questions remain after Manatee School District releases COVID-19 data on cases

How many COVID-19 cases were discovered after the start of school in Manatee County? How many people were exposed and forced to quarantine at home?

Manatee County residents were kept in the dark for nearly three weeks after the return of students on Aug. 17. On Thursday evening, amid calls for greater transparency, the School District of Manatee reported the number of cases and the affected schools on its website.

District spokesman Mike Barber announced the “COVID-19 Dashboard” in a news release just before it went online. Citing laws on student and patient privacy, he said the district had “refrained from releasing details related to confirmed COVID-19 cases.”

“Those privacy concerns were echoed in guidance from the Florida Department of Health,” the news release states, going on to cite the “absence of a statewide directive on how school districts should release COVID-19 details.”

“In balancing privacy concerns with the public’s need to know, we have determined that providing a dashboard of confirmed cases by school still protects confidentiality while providing important information related to specific schools,” the release continues. “That is the reason we are unveiling the dashboard today.”

As of Friday afternoon, the dashboard amounted to a spreadsheet of schools and case numbers. There were 43 cases among 25 campuses, but the number of people exposed to those cases was still unknown.

The term “direct exposure” describes close and prolonged contact with an infected person, meaning less than six feet of separation for at least 15 minutes. District guidance states that employees and students should isolate and monitor their symptoms for 14 days after exposure to a COVID-19 case.

In recent notices sent to families and employees, the district reported “a case of COVID-19” and “direct exposures” at local schools. Other times, the updates would cite “a couple of cases of COVID-19,” along with “minimal direct exposures” or “limited exposures,” leaving families and community members to guess the exact numbers.

The new dashboard offered more insight into the presence of COVID-19 in local schools, but without data on exposures, it was impossible to know the full impact on students and educators.

For example, families received a notice from Palmetto High School confirming “a case of COVID-19” and “direct exposures” at the school. One day later, the Bradenton Herald learned that approximately 100 people were sent home for possible exposure to the infected person.

The district soon released an updated message to families, omitting the numbers once more. The notice said an “abnormal number of students” were quarantined out of an “extreme abundance of caution.”

A request for transparency

At the school board meeting on Aug. 25, Vice-Chair Charlie Kennedy requested that case numbers and exposures be reported to the community.

“It’s really a request for communication to the board and a request for transparency to the community,” he said at the time.

On Friday morning, after the release of Manatee’s dashboard, Kennedy said he felt the same. And according to board member Scott Hopes, the community will soon have access to those numbers.

“I’m not sure why they put that out because that’s not the dashboard,” he said on Friday. “The dashboard is going to have a separate category for staff and students, cases, contacts and quarantines.”

“I had a very positive conversation with Dr. Bencie,” he continued, referencing Dr. Jennifer Bencie, the head of the Florida Department of Health in Manatee County. “We have a common understanding about what data is going to be presented, and it’s at the school district’s discretion.”

Manatee could release the number of COVID-19 cases and exposures in local schools without violating the law, Hopes said, reiterating past statements. When asked about the delay in reporting cases, he said there was a lack of direction from state officials.

“I think what was going on is the district was concerned about preserving the partnership we had with the health department,” he said. “The health department was getting information from the state that was not necessarily clear nor uniform. Let’s just put it this way, after several conference calls, it got worked out.”

Gina Messenger, the school board chair, offered a similar perspective when asked about the delay in reporting COVID-19 cases at local schools.

“They were trying to be as cautious as possible,” Messenger said. “We all saw what happened in Duval County.”

Duval County Public Schools planned to launch a dashboard and post regular updates but the county health department soon intervened. The Duval County Health Department told district leaders they would need permission from the state to publish “school specific data related to COVID-19.”

The school district is now requesting permission through the state health department, according to the Florida Times-Union.

Messenger, who has a child in the local school system, said the current dashboard offered valuable information to local families. She also supported the addition of new information, but only if it were allowed by state and federal laws.

“I think if the community were to find that of value, then that would be something worthwhile to look into, if we even can do that,” she said.

Rev. James Golden, a member of the school board, estimated that hundreds of people were exposed to the confirmed cases in traditional schools. In response, Golden said he called on leaders in the faith community to spread a message of safety and personal responsibility.

Local parishioners who have children in schools throughout Manatee County will soon receive that message. Golden said he hoped it would keep the dashboard numbers at bay.

“When you make the decision to send your child to school sick or when you make the decision to come to school, knowing that you have symptoms, even though you haven’t gotten the test results, you put that many more children at risk,” he said.

Dashboards and lawsuits

In its current form, Manatee’s dashboard lacks the information found in other school districts.

Along with the number of COVID-19 cases and the affected campuses, Polk County Public Schools is listing the date for each report. District spokesman Jason Geary said the page was created in partnership with the Florida Department of Health in Polk County.

“They’ve been very supportive,” he said in an email. “We are grateful for their partnership in all of our COVID-related communications efforts and in making this new resource available on our website. Our goal is to keep everyone as informed as possible while also respecting the privacy of individuals.”

Hillsborough County Public Schools is providing a breakdown of cases between students and employees at each building. Dozens of schools each recorded a single case, while a district office reported 20 cases among employees.

Sarasota County schools will offer the same information in its upcoming dashboard, a spokeswoman said.

“All reported cases are being shared with the public in the spirit of transparency,” Hillsborough said on its website.

Other school districts, including Orange County Public Schools, have been less transparent, according to a local teachers’ union.

After requesting similar information and being denied, the Orange County Classroom Teachers Association took its fight to court. In its complaint against district leaders, the union said it requested the names of “all worksites where there are and/or have been individuals who had tested positive for COVID-19.”

“Absent an injunction ordering Defendants to produce records that they are legally required to make public, the community will be left in the dark regarding facts that are essential to their health and safety,” the complaint states.

In a ruling on Aug. 19, Chief Judge Donald Myers Jr. said the request was not exempt from public records law. The ruling compelled Orange County Public Schools to produce any existing records on “the total number of employees, students, visitors, vendors, or any other individuals at all OCPS schools and worksites . . . who have been identified as being COVID-19 positive.”

In Manatee County, school district and health department staff work alongside each other at the new District Operations Center in downtown Bradenton, tracking cases and exposures in local schools. While some of their findings were unveiled on the new dashboard, questions remained.

If Manatee were to release the information described by board member Hopes, including the number of exposures and the breakdown of affected students and employees, the local dashboard would surpass reporting tools used in neighboring districts.

“It’s definitely legally permissible,” Hopes said. “We’ve cut through all the rhetoric of politics and disclosures and all that.”

This story was originally published September 4, 2020 at 3:57 PM.