‘It’s a real thing’: Manatee County families react to another pandemic school year

As the last school year came to an end, Megan Wilcox envisioned a new start for her 9-year-old son.

It was May 28, one day after students left for summer break, and the Manatee County School Board just voted to end its campus mask mandate. Teens and adults could choose from three different vaccines, and Florida’s positivity rate was on the decline.

“It honestly gave me a pretty good outlook,” she said. “It seemed like everything was going in the right direction.”

Her view shifted about two weeks before the new school year, as the Delta variant made headlines and Florida broke pandemic records for its case numbers and hospital admissions.

Of course, she said, mask mandates and other safety measures would make a return. But in early August, when she brought her son to campus for open house, the reality dashed her hopes.

“That was kind of my first red flag,” she said. “It was required for parents on campus to wear a mask, but many were not. Most of the kids were not. It gave me a pretty big indicator of what to expect.”

The same scene unfolded in schools throughout Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran pushed to end mask mandates. The move split families who argued in favor of stringent measures or parental choice.

And with no state funding for the unique online programs offered by school districts last year, most students planned for their return to campus, making social distancing hard, if not impossible, when school began Aug. 10.

“My son went to school and said, basically, everything from last year was gone,” the mother said. “There were no shields, Plexiglas, social distancing — as if nothing had ever happened.”

Just one week later, the school discovered a positive COVID-19 case in her son’s class. He didn’t meet the criteria for an “exposure,” meaning someone who stays within 6 feet of a positive case for 15 minutes, and he had no symptoms through the weekend.

That changed Tuesday afternoon, when he developed a headache, sore throat and stuffy nose near the end of the school day. Wilcox took her son to the Bradenton Area Convention Center for a test, and about 15 minutes later they had an answer.

Her son tested positive for COVID-19.

“He immediately burst out crying,” Wilcox said. “He said, ‘I’ve been so good. I’ve been wearing my mask.’ He doesn’t really understand why he’s gotten it.”

“I think he’s probably a little bit more emotional about it because his grandmother is immunocompromised,” Wilcox continued. “She literally didn’t leave her house the entirety of last year. He’s seeing how it’s really impacted some people.”

New safety measures

As of Friday evening, her son was among 825 students and district employees who tested positive during the first two weeks of school — a number far greater than the 419 cases recorded over an entire semester last year.

While the mother has no doubt her son contracted the illness on campus, district leaders have said that cases were starting in the community and flooding into local schools.

In hopes of curbing on-campus spread, Superintendent Cynthia Saunders rolled out new measures Aug. 12, adding daily temperature checks for employees, limiting visitors and adding plastic shields to elementary classrooms and cafeterias “where possible.”

The School Board then voted 3-2 to mandate masks on Aug. 16. The rule follows state guidance and includes an opt-out clause for students and employees, meaning, in effect, face coverings remain optional.

Wilcox’s son wears a mask, but without fellow classmates doing the same, she said, the level of protection was far less. And though her son was doing well on Friday, Wilcox feared the unknown. What long-term effects might the illness have?

More research was needed to fully understand how new COVID-19 variants affect children, the American Academy of Pediatrics said in July, urging a safe return to in-person learning. That return should include universal masking, the organization said.

But for many other parents, fear emanated not from COVID-19, but from the mask mandates themselves and other measures that took away from students’ formative years.

‘Everybody has the right to make decisions’

Maria Bizzaro and her 6-year-old daughter traveled from New York to Manatee County earlier this month. They moved in large part to escape the tough safety measures in N.Y. schools, the mother said.

Schools mandated face coverings and ensured students were 6 feet apart from each other. Sharing toys, art supplies and musical instruments was off limits.

“Part of the reason we sign up for school is to learn,” the mother said. “The other part is to interact, and there’s a very big social aspect that is extremely important to development. That just wasn’t there in New York.”

Bizzaro was drawn to the family choice offered in Florida, especially when it comes to masks. In New York, students learn to “smile with your eyes,” the mother said.

“To me, it’s just not natural,” she continued. “Sometimes it’s not about just speaking and seeing somebody’s teeth and seeing what their face is like. It’s the expressions that come along with it. Having to read eyes, I never saw that as something I wanted for my daughter.”

The pandemic, she said, was no doubt serious. But in her family, the benefit of a normal education outweighed the risks posed by COVID-19. If the School Board chooses to renew its mask mandate on Tuesday, Bizzaro hopes the opt-out clause and family choice will remain.

Six counties — including Sarasota, as of Friday — have now defied the governor and rolled out mask mandates, minus the lax opt-out clause.

“Everybody has the right to make decisions for their families,” Bizzaro said. “If I had a preexisting condition, I’d probably be a lot more careful with who my daughter was around and have her wear a mask. It might mean life or death for me as her parent, and same for my husband. It would be a different conversation.”

A turbulent start

Despite the record-breaking case numbers in schools, district leaders remain hopeful that Manatee County students and teachers can pull off a successful year.

District spokesman Mike Barber said a majority of students and employees — approximately 47,000 people in traditional public schools — are learning in spite of the pandemic. Among them is Bizzaro’s daughter.

“The numbers are there, but I don’t worry about it for my daughter,” she said. “I’m not saying it doesn’t exist and this is all a farce. It’s a real thing. Is it sad? Yes. Is it scary? Yes. Do I think this is so significantly different than any other illness that has been transmissible to kids since the beginning of time? I don’t know.”

“For me, I think it’s important for her to get a great education and to learn all those really important things that go with being in school and being able to interact,” the mother continued.

Wilcox, whose son tested positive for COVID-19, was less sure about the future. Before her son contracted the illness, she received a schoolwide notice about an infected person on campus.

However, she found out through another parent that the COVID-19 case was in her son’s class. Learning secondhand about a case in her son’s own classroom raised doubts about communication and transparency in the district, she said.

In response to questions from the Bradenton Herald, district leaders said the goal is to notify every family when a COVID-19 case is found in their students’ classroom, regardless of whether they were officially “exposed.”

But with a record number of cases breaking into local schools, district employees were spread thin as they tried to get a handle on tracking and reporting infections, said Barber, the district spokesman.

“You know, the contact tracing and the work to identify exposures, it’s going on from 5 a.m. to late in the evening,” he said Thursday. “We’re just in our eighth day of school and we’re trying to catch up on all the communications. The first priority is always to contact the parents of kids who are positive. Next is those who had direct contact.”

Kevin Chapman, chief of staff for Manatee County schools, offered his own assurance: “All families in affected classrooms should be and will be and are being notified.”

In her son’s classroom, Wilcox found a partner in the teacher who wore a face mask in school, and who always kept in touch with sick students and worried parents.

Together, they carried the weight of yet another pandemic school year.

“I would ask that you please be patient with me while I navigate what has been the most unusual and stressful start of a school year in my 19 years of teaching,” the teacher said in an email to families.

This story was originally published August 21, 2021 at 1:58 PM.