Samoset Elementary employees sent home by COVID-19. It was teachers’ first day back

The Manatee County School District has confirmed that employees of Samoset Elementary School were sent home after a coworker tested positive for COVID-19.

“An employee at Samoset Elementary learned today they were positive for COVID,” district spokesman Mike Barber said in an email to the Bradenton Herald on Monday.

“Employees who had direct contact with the confirmed case were sent home for 14 days,” he said. “Portions of the school have been closed for disinfecting. Those employees who did not have direct contact with the confirmed case can return to work tomorrow.”

Monday was the first day of work for teachers in the 2020-21 school year. When asked for more details about the case at Samoset Elementary, such as the number of people affected and their positions at the school, Barber declined to comment, citing a federal law on private health information.

According to a fact sheet created by the district, all students and employees are subject to 14 days of isolation after exposure to a confirmed case of COVID-19. Manatee defines “exposure” as “direct contact with a staff member or student for at least 15 minutes.”

The district guidance seems to align with information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The term “close contact” applies to anyone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes, the agency reported.

Pat Barber, longtime president of the Manatee Education Association, said face coverings, hand-washing and social distancing would be vital to keeping employees safe.

“We’ve negotiated a memorandum of agreement that requires the district to follow the CDC guidelines and allows people who are high risk, where possible, to work remotely because there are eLearning positions,” she said.

However, the only way to truly halt the spread of COVID-19 was to keep schools closed, she said.

The Florida Education Association recently challenged an order from Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, who called for schools to reopen five days a week. That lawsuit was ongoing as of Tuesday.

“If we’re going to open up, it’s going to be a constant challenge,” Pat Barber said.

Uncertainty in the new year

Students are slated to begin their chosen option on Aug. 17, whether it be online classes, a full return to campus or the hybrid schedule, which includes two days on campus and three days online.

Devin Bunning said he chose the full return for his 7-year-old daughter, who attends Samoset Elementary, 3300 19th Street E. He went back-to-school shopping and his daughter was learning to get comfortable with a mask before the start of classes.

He was hopeful about the return to campus, but news of a positive case at his daughter’s school hit like “a punch to the gut,” he said.

“I still want her to go to school but I also want to keep her safe,” the father said.

Bunning said school was a necessity for working parents like himself. And even if he were able to keep his daughter at home and focus entirely on virtual classes, the father said he was unprepared to give his daughter a quality education.

“I am not a qualified teacher,” he said. “I found that out with the whole eLearning thing. I just don’t have the energy or the mental capacity for it.”

While his daughter was scheduled to return in less than two weeks, Manatee Superintendent Cynthia Saunders has often said that schools would be partially or fully closed for disinfecting throughout the year.

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

In its daily update on Monday morning, the Florida Department of Health reported the death of a 17-year-old boy in Manatee County, along with 92 new cases of the virus. Locally, there were 8,825 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 187 deaths since the pandemic began.

The local numbers were part of 491,884 statewide cases and 7,157 deaths among Florida residents, according to the state health department.

Manatee school board members planned to meet Tuesday afternoon to review the district’s health insurance program and the possibility of using rapid COVID-19 tests in the new year.

Local officials — including members of the school district, the county health department and county government — also planned to hold a news conference on Wednesday morning.

They will announce “a community-wide initiative aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19,” according to a news release.

This story was originally published August 3, 2020 at 6:56 PM.