Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
0:00 Music
0:28 Good morning. The August 11th board workshop to discuss open
0:31 metrics and the emergency rule policy requiring face coverings
0:35 is now in session.
0:36 Pam, please call the roll.
0:41 Mrs. Belford?
0:44 Mr. Susan?
0:47 Present.
0:48 Mrs. McDougall?
0:49 Present.
0:50 Mrs. Deskovich?
0:51 Present.
0:52 And Mrs. Campbell?
0:53 Present.
0:54 We will now say the Pledge of Allegiance.
1:00 I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
1:04 and to the Republic of which it stands, one nation, under God,
1:10 indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
1:16 Board members, we will be revisiting the metric discussion and
1:20 current trends in Brevard concerning COVID-19.
1:24 With us today for questions are our partners from the Department
1:27 of Health, Maria Stahl, Bruce Pierce, and John Davis.
1:30 They’re also going to give us an updated trend since our last
1:32 meeting.
1:33 Go ahead, Ms. Stahl.
1:35 Okay.
1:36 Good morning, everyone.
1:37 Yes, I’ll give our numbers and the trends over the last two
1:41 weeks from the last board workshop where we were here in July 29th.
1:47 Again, it’s important that we look at the trends and not a
1:49 static number on any given day because it does bounce all over
1:53 the place depending on how many labs were reported out on any
1:57 given day.
1:58 And these statistics I’m going to read are from yesterday
2:01 because today’s report actually comes out at 11 today, so it’s
2:04 not released yet.
2:06 But as of yesterday, we had 6,099 cases.
2:10 The median age was 53.
2:12 And I can tell you the trend has been continuing between 41 and
2:16 58 as far as the median age goes.
2:19 The positivity, lab positivity rate for the last two weeks
2:23 ranged from 3.8 to 8.6%.
2:27 There’s only one day that was higher than 6.7% and six days were
2:33 actually below 5%.
2:36 The state, the last reported state RT number is 0.91.
2:42 And again, as I said last time, the RT number greater than one
2:46 shows the virus is replicating more rapidly and less than one is
2:50 less of a spread.
2:52 Our deaths, as of yesterday, we had 151 deaths.
2:57 And I have to say I really, I hate talking about deaths as
3:00 numbers because they really are people that are affecting
3:03 families, which is, I just hate the numbers here.
3:08 But we had 151 numbers.
3:11 The ages go from 41 to 103.
3:16 That dipped down a little bit from last time.
3:19 But 89 of those cases were related to individuals in long-term
3:22 care facilities.
3:24 Our hospital status and capacity has stayed very stable.
3:29 As of yesterday, there was 29.9% of hospital bed availability.
3:37 The ICU availability was 23.43.
3:41 And that truly has not wavered a whole lot.
3:44 Our hospitals, like I said, are busy but doing well.
3:47 The pediatric report that I showed, that we showed last time
3:51 that I said was weekly is now daily.
3:53 They did increase that to a daily report.
3:56 As of yesterday in Brevard, 4,462 children under the age of 18
4:01 were tested.
4:03 There were 336 positive cases at a 7.5 positivity rate.
4:10 As I say that, we are the lowest in the state with positivity
4:13 rate.
4:14 We are not the lowest in the state with testing, the number of
4:17 tests have done.
4:18 But we are the lowest in positivity.
4:20 Overall, we’re number 11 in the state as far as number of tests
4:25 done.
4:26 There’s only two, am I saying states? I mean counties.
4:33 There’s only two counties that are lower than us in positivity
4:38 rate, overall positivity rate.
4:41 And there’s two counties that are the same as us.
4:45 Statewide, there has been seven deaths in children.
4:49 That increased a little bit from last time.
4:52 One in the 5 to 10-year-old range, two in the 11 to 13, and four
4:57 in the 14 to 17.
5:00 Brevard has seen no children’s deaths.
5:03 We’ve had one case of auto-inflammatory syndrome, the multi-inflammatory
5:09 syndrome,
5:10 and that was in an individual in the age of 20.
5:13 So that’s looked at at age 21 and below.
5:16 So overall, the messaging, and if I can’t say one thing, it’s
5:21 stay home if you’re sick.
5:22 And that’s teachers as well as students.
5:25 Stay home if you’re sick.
5:27 Social distancing, avoiding crowds, hand hygiene, masks when you’re
5:33 in public places
5:34 and can’t maintain social distancing, and the regular cleaning,
5:38 especially the high-touch surfaces.
5:40 So that’s the overall trends.
5:42 I’ll hand it over to Bruce to add.
5:47 I really don’t have much to add.
5:52 I think the overall message is children do well.
5:55 Adults and teens are the major spreaders, and we need to keep
5:59 that in mind as you implement things.
6:02 Maths do work, and I think if we continue to do what we know we
6:07 are supposed to do, we will do well.
6:19 Okay.
6:20 With that, I’d like to open it up for discussion.
6:22 Does anybody have any questions for Ms. Stahl and the team?
6:25 Ms. McDougall?
6:31 I do. I just have one question.
6:32 So I just want to be real clear.
6:35 Our positivity rate currently is what again?
6:40 Overall, since the beginning of our testing, it’s been 7%.
6:47 It ranges on any given day.
6:50 When you look at that daily report that comes out, you’ll
6:54 actually, on the second page of the report,
6:55 it’ll show you what the positivity rate is for that day.
6:59 But the positivity rate overall is 7%.
7:04 But in the last two weeks, the positivity has ranged from 3.8 to
7:10 8.6.
7:12 Six days have been less than 5%.
7:15 One day was higher than 6.7%.
7:18 So the 8.6% was one day out of 14.
7:22 So when we average it, you’re saying that we’re at 7%?
7:26 It’s 7% since the beginning, since we started testing in March.
7:30 And so currently, I mean, do we do, are you looking at this on a
7:35 weekly basis?
7:36 Or are you just doing a cumulative?
7:39 The 7% overall is cumulative since the beginning of time.
7:44 I say the beginning of time, it’s March when we started testing.
7:47 Feels like the beginning of time.
7:48 But it’s daily positivity rate, and it’s depending on whatever
7:52 labs report out that day.
7:54 So basically, as I remember last time you were here, you said
8:00 anything under 10 is good?
8:05 That’s what Governor DeSantis has said.
8:07 Governor DeSantis is pleased with single digits.
8:11 He has had a press conference where he actually praised Brevard
8:15 because we were in single digits.
8:17 But as I say that, there is no state or CDC guidance that says
8:23 above or below.
8:26 There are individual organizations.
8:28 Someone brought up American Academy of Pediatrics and who has
8:31 some things.
8:33 But CDC and the state do not have specific above this or below
8:38 this.
8:39 Okay.
8:40 Thank you.
8:41 Ms. Campbell, you had some questions?
8:43 Sure.
8:44 Well, just in response to Ms. McEuliffe, I just emailed you guys
8:46 just a little while ago to update.
8:49 It doesn’t have the numbers from yesterday because, as Ms. Paul
8:51 said, they don’t release those until 11 each day.
8:54 And I’ll update those when they come through.
8:56 But I’ve been tracking, because you mentioned last time, our
8:59 rolling averages.
9:01 I think the 14-day rolling average, 7-day rolling, both of those
9:04 were mentioned.
9:05 But in the spreadsheet that I sent you, I’ve been tracking both
9:07 of them.
9:08 And so, as of yesterday, our 7-day rolling average is 5.5 and
9:13 our 14-day rolling average is 5.6.
9:16 And there’s a pretty little chart and everything.
9:18 Anybody who wants me to send that, I’ll be happy to send that to
9:20 you.
9:21 But I did send it to the board this morning that most updated.
9:24 So, okay, so does anybody have a question on this topic?
9:35 Because my next thing is kind of off that topic for just a
9:38 little bit.
9:39 If you have any questions for the Department of Health.
9:41 Yeah, for them, but it’s not on the same topic if you wanted to
9:43 go through.
9:44 I don’t have a question, but I have a question for you on this
9:48 chart.
9:49 Okay.
9:50 So, the red line is the 7-day rolling average and the 14 days, I
9:54 mean the green line is the 14-day rolling average.
9:57 Yes.
9:58 So, can we, I guess it’s, I need them to see this to ask the
10:02 question.
10:03 It looks like, because if I recall either what you all said or
10:06 maybe what the American Pediatric Association said,
10:08 we’re looking for a decline over a two-week period.
10:11 Yes, is that?
10:14 Ultimately decline, but I think stability.
10:17 I think we don’t want to see trending way up.
10:21 Okay, then if Ms. Campbell’s data is all correct in here, the
10:24 green and the red line are trending down.
10:27 And that’s seven days and 14 days.
10:29 A little tiny, no, they’re trending down.
10:32 Ms. Deskovich, can you, or Ms. Campbell, can you refer the data
10:34 that you were just saying so that Department of Health officials.
10:38 So, that is every day at 11 o’clock, the Department of Health
10:42 releases the, yes, thank you, because people don’t know.
10:45 No, I just, because the people on the, yeah, the people on the
10:47 call are going to wonder.
10:48 So, you can go to the Department of Health’s website.
10:51 They have a, if you go to Florida Department of Health, it’ll
10:54 have a COVID link and you can, it’ll, you have to scroll down
10:58 and it says county, county updates, I believe.
11:02 And there’s a link and every day it’s updated with the testing
11:07 data for the whole state and every county.
11:11 It includes all the demographic data, the number of deaths and
11:14 hospitalizations and all of that, the median age for each, for
11:18 the whole state and as well as the county.
11:19 And so, there’s lots of different places where people are
11:21 getting data, but ultimately they’re taking their data from this
11:24 same, this is all of the testing.
11:27 And I just want to make the point because somebody had said, a
11:29 couple people have said to me something about, you know, testing,
11:32 all testing was shut down a few weekends ago because of the
11:34 hurricane.
11:35 That’s not true because the state site was shut down, but there
11:39 was data.
11:40 Can you tell us about kind of how that went that weekend?
11:42 Yeah, well, and most, most places including our testing sites
11:45 were, you know, were closed Friday.
11:48 We don’t, we don’t test Saturday, Sunday.
11:50 The state site does, but they were all down for three or four
11:53 days.
11:54 Right.
11:55 But as I said last time, the daily report is whatever labs
11:58 report out that day.
12:00 Right.
12:01 So, if we see, and you have seen in the last couple days, there’s
12:04 been a few, there’s been lower labs reporting out than there has
12:08 been other days.
12:09 Right.
12:10 And I’m sure that’s 100% related to the testing sites being shut
12:13 down for those couple of days.
12:16 Right.
12:17 But that’s why you really can’t look at numbers.
12:19 You really have to look at the trend of positivity.
12:21 Right, the trend.
12:22 Because, yeah.
12:23 Right.
12:24 So, so the reason why I think this data, the data that you point
12:26 us to, the Department of Health data still is good for us is
12:30 because, one, it still was showing 700 to 800 on those three
12:34 days around the hurricane.
12:35 Which, you know, some of the hospitals I’m sure were testing
12:37 because if you have to go to the hospital, they test you when
12:39 you go in, right?
12:40 So, long-term care facilities are testing on a regular basis.
12:43 Correct.
12:44 And the other thing I will say, I don’t remember what it was two
12:47 weeks ago to tell you the truth, but currently, the lag time for
12:51 our labs are about five to seven days.
12:54 Gotcha.
12:55 So, that’s, you know, you may see we’re about a week out now
12:59 from, a little over a week out from when things were shut down
13:03 from the hurricane.
13:04 And so, if there had, for everybody who was waiting and didn’t
13:06 go tested then, it would have been kind of a dump in the next
13:09 week, the following week.
13:11 That’s why I bring that up.
13:12 Because eventually, it’s going to all catch up.
13:13 That’s why you have the rolling average.
13:15 Correct.
13:16 Okay.
13:17 So, does that answer your…
13:19 Yeah, it sure does.
13:20 I just, I think we should, as a district, publicize Ms. Campbell’s
13:24 data on a regular basis.
13:26 Because if we’re going to go with the rolling average…
13:28 Yeah, it’s not my data.
13:29 All I did was take what was here and put it on a spreadsheet.
13:32 Because I couldn’t find a place that showed rolling averages.
13:37 And so, all I did was take the data that the Department of
13:39 Health is putting out every day.
13:41 And it updates.
13:42 I went every time they updated a day previous, I make sure to
13:44 update those.
13:45 And then just put it in a form that was easy for me to see and
13:48 share that.
13:49 It’s just averages.
13:50 And I like that.
13:51 And Ms. Campbell, thank you so much for doing that.
13:52 Because there is a lot of opportunity for people to be looking
13:55 at numbers that may be two weeks past, one weeks past.
13:58 Because when you consistently search, you’re looking at
14:00 different times.
14:01 Yeah.
14:02 And so the Florida, you might actually…
14:03 Florida Today has been pretty good about keeping up with it.
14:05 Right.
14:06 But you might pull an article that has better trend rates on the
14:07 social media from two weeks ago.
14:09 And they may pull that.
14:10 Right.
14:11 The other opportunity that they have is if you go to the
14:12 Department of Health’s website, you can download by county into
14:16 Excel spreadsheet.
14:17 So you don’t have to consistently add to it.
14:20 You can just download all the information and it’s available too.
14:22 Well, you should have told me that before.
14:23 Well, you can.
14:24 But I do commend you for bringing that up.
14:26 Because I think that the time and where you get your data from
14:29 is, you know, you have to get it from the source.
14:32 So I wanted to say thank you for bringing that up.
14:34 Yeah.
14:35 Good point.
14:36 And I agree with you, Ms. Deskovich.
14:37 I think that there should be a link to that so that people can
14:39 go to somewhere on our pages that they know where to go to get
14:42 the actual rates.
14:43 Well, it just sounds like we are very interested in focusing on
14:46 14-day rolling average of positivity rate.
14:50 And if that’s what we’re focusing on, then this chart shows that.
14:54 And if we watch it daily, we’ll see if there’s a big spike.
14:57 We’ll see if it’s trending up.
14:58 And then we can reevaluate and make better decisions for our
15:01 district.
15:02 And I would also know that I’m sure that our trusted cabinet in
15:06 the back is looking at those daily rates too and making sure
15:11 that that’s part of our conversation also.
15:12 So thank you so much for doing that.
15:15 Ms. Deskovich, do you have any other questions for the
15:17 Department of Health?
15:19 Ms. Belford, do you have any?
15:21 Can you hear me?
15:32 So Ms. Deskovich, can you reiterate who remained open during the
15:37 time and who closed down during that time?
15:41 Are you talking specifically during our last storm?
15:45 Yes, when the sites were shut down.
15:47 Okay.
15:48 Yeah.
15:49 What everyone needs to remember is the testing sites outside,
15:52 except for maybe long-term care in hospitals, they’re outside.
15:55 They’re outside under tents.
15:57 So during inclement weather, they will be shut down.
16:02 I can tell you our Department of Health site on thunderstorms in
16:05 an afternoon, we shut down, even maybe for a couple of hours.
16:09 And we have had our tents blow away.
16:11 So that is the reason they’re shut down.
16:13 During the last storm that we had, and I’m just going to say
16:16 hurricane or tropical storm, I, because I have no idea how to
16:21 say it.
16:22 But during that time, the Eastern Florida State College closed
16:27 down Thursday.
16:29 They were closed Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
16:34 They reopened on Tuesday.
16:36 Our site, we closed down in Vieira Friday afternoon, and we reopened
16:41 on Tuesday.
16:43 I cannot specifically tell you Parish’s site of when they closed
16:51 down, nor Omni’s site when they closed down.
16:54 But I would anticipate it, it’s very similar to at least the
16:58 Friday and the Monday, because we need the day to take down the
17:02 tents and another day to pull them up.
17:05 So, but I would say a three to four day for everybody over that
17:09 length of time, except 100%.
17:13 The hospitals were still testing, long-term care facilities, if
17:17 they were testing, were still testing.
17:20 So, in the hospital setting, are they testing their employees,
17:24 or are they only testing patients, do you know?
17:28 Um, Bruce, do you know that?
17:32 Yeah, there’s testing, the, you know, when you go into a
17:36 hospital, it’s not going to be a routine testing for patients.
17:40 It’s going to be if the doctor feels the testing needs to be
17:43 done.
17:44 And, and I need to reiterate, um, hospitals are not the place to
17:48 go to get tested.
17:50 Hospitals are the place to go when your respiratory symptoms
17:53 start deteriorating and you need to go to the hospital.
17:56 So, we cannot be inundating the hospitals on testing.
18:00 When I say Parish does testing, they, they actually have their
18:03 van that they’re taking out in the community.
18:06 Um, and they’re doing testing at, at off sites.
18:09 And so is Health First.
18:10 Health First is doing their testing on Merritt Island also.
18:13 Um, as far as the routine testing of employees, that I don’t
18:18 know.
18:19 That I don’t know.
18:20 That would be an individual hospital, um, question.
18:24 Um, but the patients are if, if the physician deems it necessary
18:29 to be tested.
18:31 Okay.
18:32 And the long-term care facilities are still routinely testing
18:35 their employees, correct?
18:37 The long-term care facilities, um, that was an executive order,
18:41 um, by ACA.
18:43 Um, they, all of their employees and contractors need to be
18:47 tested every two weeks.
18:49 Um, we do have, um, the state, um, incident management team that
18:54 does come out and assist with, um, patient testing
18:59 if there’s something going on in that long-term care facility.
19:02 Um, but what they do is they actually have kits send to them
19:06 directly and they do their testing
19:09 and send it off.
19:10 But it is required every two weeks.
19:13 Okay.
19:14 And do you have any idea if the long-term care facilities are
19:16 testing more frequently or are
19:19 they all following the, the two-week mandate or do we know?
19:22 I, I assume they’re doing the two weeks and, and that more
19:25 frequently.
19:27 I don’t know if there would be a need necessarily to do more
19:29 frequently.
19:30 Um, but different facilities are requesting testing of their
19:35 clients.
19:36 Um, some are being done privately.
19:39 Some are requesting the testing through IMT, which is the
19:41 incident management team, which
19:45 is the regional team.
19:46 When I say IMT, it’s the regional team.
19:48 Okay.
19:50 So when we’re, I’m just, my concern is that the shutdown would
19:56 potentially impact the, uh,
20:01 the data that we’re receiving.
20:02 So obviously we need to look at a trend, but it would seem to me
20:05 that even a trend would
20:07 be impacted by several days of very low positivity rates.
20:12 If, if the majority of the tests coming in are, for example,
20:16 long-term care facility employees
20:17 who are being screened on a regular basis versus people who are
20:20 being tested because there’s
20:22 a likelihood that they are, you know, they’re showing symptoms
20:26 or something like that.
20:28 If the, if the testing sites were shut down, do you, can anyone
20:30 kind of weigh in on the
20:32 I, I actually think that it might be the reverse because I think
20:37 if your testing sites are being
20:39 shut down for three or four days, those that are being tested
20:41 are the symptomatic people that
20:44 are being tested.
20:45 They’re the ones that are showing up at the hospitals, um, and
20:48 being tested, but I have
20:50 to tell you again, and I can’t reiterate this enough.
20:54 You can’t look at the number of cases per day.
20:57 You have to look at when it’s reported out.
21:00 Um, the, the numbers are the numbers of labs reported out that
21:05 day.
21:06 And the positivity rate is of those labs that are reporting out
21:09 for that day.
21:11 Um, but yes, when they’re shut down, the people that are sick
21:14 are going to be going to the
21:15 hospitals for testing.
21:16 So I, I actually might think it might be a little reverse.
21:19 Okay.
21:22 Bruce, do you have anything to weigh in on that?
21:24 No, no.
21:26 We really don’t have a good idea of, of how many are symptomatic,
21:30 how many are asymptomatic
21:31 that are getting tested either.
21:33 The other thing that you have to keep in mind is probably the
21:36 burden of disease is anywhere
21:38 from five to 10 X, whatever it is you’re reporting.
21:41 We never get a hundred percent capture of anything.
21:44 Can you say that one more time?
21:47 We never get a hundred percent capture of anything.
21:51 So whatever is reported is a lower percentage of what actually
21:56 is there.
21:56 So you anticipate that our positivity rate is actually five to
22:01 10% higher than what’s being reported.
22:03 That’s what CDC is putting out, not me.
22:06 Okay.
22:10 But that’s nationwide and worldwide, not just county.
22:15 And that’s just because the whole population is not being tested.
22:22 How does our percentage of population tested in Brevard County
22:26 compare to other, other counties?
22:29 I know you mentioned the number of tests, but I feel like size
22:32 of county factors into that.
22:35 I don’t have that number.
22:37 Is it 14% John?
22:39 14% of our population has been tested.
22:43 Our state goal is to have 2% of our population tested every
22:47 month for the last several months.
22:51 And we have truly exceeded that.
22:53 I think the month of July offhand was like 7.6%.
22:57 This month already we’ve had 1.6% tested and that’s, we’re only
23:03 a little over a week into the month.
23:05 But we don’t have any, do we, we don’t have a county by county
23:11 comparison, right?
23:12 I mean, I have it.
23:13 I don’t have it in front of me.
23:14 Well, but did you tell us?
23:16 I could, I could send it, I could send it to Chris and she could
23:19 get it out.
23:20 Did you tell us that we were number 11 in counties of the number
23:23 of tests done?
23:25 Yes.
23:27 Okay.
23:28 So, yes, we’re number 11 in the counties of number of tests done.
23:31 And you know, you figure above us are your, you know, your Miami
23:34 Dades, your, your Browards, your Palm Beaches, your Duvalles,
23:38 your Oranges, your Hillsboro Pinellas.
23:41 We’re the 11th largest county, so that’s pretty consistent.
23:44 Right.
23:44 Ms. Belford, did you have any more?
23:49 I apologize, ladies and gentlemen.
24:08 Okay.
24:09 Thank you.
24:10 Um, last time we talked to Solve there, we had talked about the
24:25 way that negative tests were counted.
24:29 Do you know, has there been any, um, progress on being able to
24:35 identify how many of our tests are duplicate?
24:39 Well, I, like I said last time, the positive tests are not
24:44 duplicates.
24:46 Right.
24:47 Okay.
24:48 Um, I can also tell you, I mean, you know how the state is
24:51 counting.
24:52 The state is counting.
24:54 Every negative gets reported as a negative.
24:56 I can also tell you that probably if you talk to 10 different
25:01 states, they’re, they’re, they’re looking at it 10 different
25:05 ways.
25:07 Um, I can tell you all epidemiologists and all statisticians are
25:09 going to look at things a different way.
25:12 Um, but what I can say is these numbers are being calculated at
25:16 the state level and this is the, our state has felt this is the
25:20 best way to capture these numbers.
25:23 So I have not heard that there’s going to be any change in the
25:27 way that they are reporting these out.
25:30 Bruce, do you have anything?
25:32 No, within, with any data set, there’s going to be, there’s
25:35 going to be challenges and that’s a fact.
25:38 Um, secondly, we, we see only, we see every positive that comes
25:43 through.
25:44 We don’t see the negative.
25:45 So that’s all handled at the, at the state level.
25:50 Um, so those negative counts don’t even come for you all.
25:52 It just goes to them for the inclusion in the.
25:54 Right.
25:55 Because they don’t need to be investigated.
25:56 So we investigate all the positives.
25:58 The negatives are just off our radar.
26:01 Okay.
26:02 So do you all happen to know if we look at the total number of
26:04 positive cases in Brevard County compared to our population in
26:08 Brevard County?
26:09 Do you know what that positivity rate would be?
26:12 Not off top of my head.
26:18 No.
26:20 The total number of positive cases in Brevard County.
26:24 Six thousand and ninety-nine, right?
26:26 Yeah.
26:27 Divided by five hundred and ninety-one.
26:29 One percent.
26:31 Our population.
26:32 Six hundred and ninety-one.
26:34 Like one percent.
26:36 But that’s a number that’s never going to go down.
26:40 Right.
26:41 It is always going to go up because you can’t.
26:43 It’s not the current.
26:45 I mean, what we, the number that we can’t pinpoint is currently
26:49 in Brevard County, how many people are still positive and
26:53 infectious because you can’t ever nail down.
26:56 Some of them, you know, are short-term, some of them long-term,
26:58 you know, that’s a number that we would love to all get to, but
27:01 we can’t, right, won’t ever be able to put our finger on that
27:05 because we don’t capture recovered.
27:07 And people say, why can’t we capture recovered?
27:08 Well, how do you, y’all, y’all are contact tracing.
27:12 You can’t call everybody who’s at a positive seven and say, are
27:14 you over it yet?
27:15 You know, and how are you going to know you’re over it yet?
27:19 You’re right, which is the standard truly is from diagnosis of
27:24 case.
27:25 If you go, you know, two weeks out, probably recovered.
27:29 The numbers aren’t being captured and recovery numbers are being
27:32 captured again differently by everybody.
27:35 But predominantly on an, I mean, would you agree with me, Bruce?
27:41 About two weeks after diagnosis of the case, you’re going to be
27:43 fine.
27:44 I mean, the standard to return to work, which I think we’ve,
27:49 which I said last time, is 10 days from the start of symptoms or
27:54 the asymptomatic positive test, 10 days and 24 hours, no fever
28:01 with, with no medications.
28:03 So that’s even less than the two weeks.
28:06 I think you mentioned that our current time for return of tests,
28:21 are we still, did you say five to nine or seven to nine?
28:24 I’m sorry, can you repeat the question?
28:28 The number of days it’s taking us to get results on tests.
28:31 Results back, yes.
28:32 Every lab is a little bit different.
28:34 But I would say the average is five to seven at the current time.
28:37 So do you, would you feel fairly certain saying that in this, at
28:40 this point in time, we have closed the lag on the time that the,
28:46 the testing sites were down?
28:48 Yes.
28:50 I would, I would think at this point, yes.
28:52 As I say that also, when I say the five to seven days, there are
28:56 priority testings.
28:58 Um, and the priority testings that go to the state lab are
29:01 coming back in two days, two to three days.
29:04 Um, on the state call that we had yesterday, Dr. Ripkes, our
29:08 surgeon general did say that the pediatric, symptomatic, symptomatic
29:13 pediatric clients are, are going to be a priority.
29:16 You know, when we get going here.
29:18 So a pediatric symptomatic, um, we should get back maybe in two,
29:22 two to three days.
29:24 Okay.
29:25 Um, and the, uh, you probably are, have heard or are familiar,
29:31 um, with what’s going on in Hillsborough County, as far as them
29:36 making a decision to, to return to online learning for the first
29:38 four weeks.
29:40 Um, their health department in Hillsborough County did a
29:43 presentation at their board meeting, and they provided some
29:47 information that broke down the, um, number of cases per day.
29:52 And kind of categorized it.
29:55 So they had, um, they had red, orange, and yellow, red, orange,
30:00 yellow, and green based on the number of new cases per day per a
30:04 hundred thousand people in their area.
30:07 Is that a data point that you all are looking at at all?
30:10 No, I mean, again, when, when you look at this, you’re, you’re,
30:14 you’re only talking about what, you know, not what you don’t
30:18 know.
30:19 And what you, what you don’t know is what will bite you.
30:21 Um, so what we know is what we know.
30:24 And what we know is really how to mitigate.
30:27 And that’s what we need to focus on in, in our opinion.
30:32 And that’s the messaging that we’re pushing out is how do you
30:34 mitigate this stuff?
30:36 Um, and as long as people are doing the right thing and, and we’re
30:40 helping them by helping them default to the right decision, then
30:44 things get better.
30:46 Okay. Um, I think that is all the questions that I had. Any
30:55 other board members, Mr. Susan?
30:56 Yeah. Cause I was waiting to go after you. I apologize. Is this
31:00 thing on? Can you guys hear me?
31:02 All right. He’s gotta be close.
31:03 All right. Um, so I had a couple of questions and I was going to
31:06 go through them.
31:08 You had mentioned hospital beds were hovering in the 20.
31:14 There was a percentage that you gave. Um, my question is, is we
31:18 had talked before about hospitals being able to convert beds
31:23 into more ICU.
31:24 Is that percentage based in there or just currently now?
31:28 Yeah, that percentage is, is currently now. So that’s not enacting
31:31 their surge plans at all. So, yeah.
31:35 And then in your, I know it’s hypothetical, but if you, in every
31:40 hospital, they can expand the number of ICU beds.
31:43 And increase that number. And I guess it based upon the hospital.
31:48 So like homes might have a better, a bigger opportunity to do
31:50 that than some of the other hospitals, right?
31:53 Yes. Um, I can say Rockledge Regional is now accepting the
31:57 patients from Melbourne Regional. Um, actually in Sebastian too,
32:03 which is outside of our county.
32:03 So you do have the Stewart Network, which is a little bigger. So
32:06 you have that. Um, but yes, I mean, Health First has four
32:11 hospitals. So yeah.
32:13 So one of the issues that we were talking about the metrics was
32:16 I was looking at the opportunity for the ICU beds to be full,
32:19 right?
32:20 That was one of my metrics that I was trying to pin down. How do
32:23 I as a board member know right now we have 20 something percent
32:27 open, right?
32:28 But then all of a sudden that number could actually be 40
32:30 percent open because Health First or Steward may have more
32:32 opportunities in beds.
32:34 Is there a way to judge that or no? Because the hospitals are
32:37 the only ones that know how they can convert their ICU beds,
32:39 right?
32:40 Right. They’re the ones. They have their own, every hospital
32:42 system has their own surge plans.
32:45 Yeah. Okay. Um, which in their surge plans, that’s all listed in
32:49 there. I do not know the details of each hospital.
32:53 No. Um, but what I can tell you is we, in fact, this afternoon
32:56 is one. We do have hospital calls.
32:59 Right. With each hospital. We had them twice a week. We just cut
33:01 down to once a week and discuss that very thing.
33:05 How are they doing? Are they, you know, and that, that sort of
33:08 thing, but I can tell you through the whole duration here, our
33:13 hospitals have been fine.
33:15 Awesome. And then the next question that I had was, um, what
33:19 point, if we’re at 20 something percent and you feel confident
33:23 about that,
33:24 at what point does it become, does the, does the CDC or any
33:27 other recommendations out there, because I know you, you know
33:30 what I mean?
33:31 I mean, it’s difficult to give these, but, um, at what point
33:34 does the, does the hospital ICU bed situation become a, a real
33:38 bad factor?
33:40 Like, is that at 10% open, 5% open? How, how did, what point
33:44 would that dart be thrown at to where that becomes an issue?
33:47 Well, hypotheticals are always a challenge.
33:49 I know. I know. And I apologize about doing that to you.
33:51 So the, the reality is it’s based on their ability to respond.
33:55 So when they, when they say we can’t do it anymore, then that’s
33:57 when you’ve got a problem.
33:59 Yeah, I, I get that. But like, how do we know ahead of time that,
34:04 Hey, Houston, we have, we’re going towards that problem. Like,
34:07 Hey, we’re at 23 this week. We’re at 10 this week. We’re at five
34:09 this week.
34:11 Now we have a problem or how does that work?
34:13 You, you want, I mean, they’re monitoring their workflow. They’re
34:16 monitoring their capacity and all that.
34:18 Okay.
34:19 It’s like, if, if, if a plane crashes tomorrow, how, what does
34:21 the ER do at that point?
34:23 Okay.
34:24 That’s kind of what I think you’re asking.
34:27 And I don’t have an answer for that.
34:29 What I, what I can say is the hospitals are in constant
34:32 communication with ACA.
34:34 Um, and, and with us, when they see themselves in a danger zone.
34:38 Right.
34:39 They’re going to sound the alarms before the danger zone is hit.
34:44 And, you know, I talked last time, the three levels of surge and
34:47 the first surge is within their own hospital and converting
34:52 their own beds.
34:53 You know, when they reach that point that they’re at stage one
34:58 surge, um, and they’re converting their own beds, then we’re
35:01 also looking at capacity of other hospitals because that’s stage
35:04 two.
35:05 Right.
35:06 So parish reaches theirs.
35:08 They may need Rockridge regionals help.
35:10 So when we’re at stage one, we’re looking at stage two.
35:13 When we’re at stage two, we’re actually looking at stage three.
35:17 Um, I can say early on, and it might’ve been the end of March,
35:20 beginning of April.
35:22 We were actually looking at facilities in our county to convert
35:25 to hospitals if we needed to.
35:27 We had one in North County and one in South County.
35:29 Um, we never had to do anything, but we did have the plans for
35:33 that.
35:34 Okay.
35:35 That’s, that’s great.
35:36 That the stages is a perfect example of it ramping up to a point
35:39 where hospitals are looking at different levels.
35:43 They’re looking at different options.
35:44 That’s a good, you know what I mean?
35:46 That’s a good level as opposed to planes crashing and everything
35:48 else.
35:49 So, um, the other question I had is, is that, so when I, when I
35:52 looked at the numbers, you had said that, and I apologize.
35:56 Um, you had said that we had, I was basically doing the numbers.
36:01 There’s a certain percentage of people that were in the, um,
36:04 long-term care facilities.
36:06 And I’m trying to jump to my notes real quick.
36:08 It looks like there was like a 62, um, deaths that were in non
36:11 long-term care.
36:13 Is that, am I roughly right about that?
36:15 Yeah, we were at 151 deaths and 89 were related to long-term
36:19 care.
36:20 Okay.
36:21 So it’s over 50% were related to long-term care.
36:23 Okay.
36:24 All right.
36:25 There’s that piece.
36:26 Okay.
36:27 That’s going to explain my death rates.
36:28 And then can you do a better job?
36:30 I, I apologize because I was, can you tell me, I love when we’re
36:33 first at something that’s good.
36:35 Can you tell me more about, we are number one in the lowest
36:38 amount of cases.
36:40 Can you say that again?
36:41 Cause I think that that might be a really good point to be heard
36:43 again.
36:44 Um, what, what was I talking about?
36:46 You were talking about.
36:47 Was I talking about the pediatric, I was talking about the
36:49 pediatric positivity rate.
36:52 So when you look at the daily pediatric report, it listed out by
36:56 county, how many positive cases,
36:59 how many total cases or how many positive negatives and totals
37:03 tested and the positivity rate.
37:05 And they have that every day it comes out.
37:08 Um, as of yesterday, we were the lowest positivity rate, um,
37:13 amongst the state.
37:15 There were 15 counties that actually did more pediatric testing
37:20 than us.
37:21 Um, some of them, not a whole lot, like a hundred or two hundred
37:24 more.
37:25 Um, and then there, of course, were the big counties that did
37:28 quite a bit more.
37:29 Um, but we were the lowest positivity rate of those labs that
37:33 were done.
37:34 Awesome.
37:35 Thank you.
37:37 Okay.
37:42 I’m good on the, the questions and thank you, Ms. Stahl and
37:45 staff for coming.
37:46 I really appreciate it.
37:47 I know you guys are busy.
37:48 Thank you.
37:49 I have just a couple more, if you don’t mind.
37:50 I’m sorry.
37:51 Um, and I, there are things that I’ve spoken directly with you
37:54 about, Ms. Stahl, but I just,
37:55 I want to, I want to revisit and, um, so you and I, I had inquired
37:59 about the child testing sites and one of the, um, things that
38:05 you identified or we identified together, I guess, was a lack of
38:10 free testing opportunity in the north end of the county.
38:14 Um, and I know there are some pediatric groups that are doing
38:16 some testing.
38:17 Um, and I know there are some pediatric groups that are doing
38:17 some testing.
38:18 I got some information from, um, uh, a friend of mine that works
38:21 in one of those pediatric offices and they’ve said that they can
38:24 write prescriptions for them to go to the hospital and get
38:27 tested if they feel it’s necessary.
38:29 But do you see, and I, I, I don’t think that this level of
38:33 granular data is available to me.
38:37 I’m wondering if it is for you, the number of children being
38:40 tested in the north end of the county compared to the number of
38:44 children being tested in the south end of the county.
38:47 Do you have access to that data?
38:49 I do not have access to.
38:51 We just have a total number tested in our county.
38:54 Um, Bruce, do you know if there’s any available data set?
38:57 Um, what I can say that, um, since, since we talked, I can say
39:02 in the north end of the county, I know Omni is looking towards
39:05 moving to the north end of the county.
39:08 Um, and they do testing for anybody to and above.
39:12 Um, I also found out that Medfast, if you’re going in just for
39:17 testing, is not charging, um, an office visit.
39:22 So you can just go in and get tested.
39:24 Okay.
39:26 And they’ll test children as well?
39:28 Mm-hmm.
39:29 Okay.
39:30 Is there, there’s no charge for the test or the office visit at
39:32 Medfast?
39:33 No, I, I, that’s what they, that’s what they’ve told me, no.
39:36 Okay.
39:37 That’s great info.
39:38 Thank you.
39:39 Yeah.
39:40 But there’s a difference between their rapid test and their
39:42 regular test.
39:43 Mm-hmm.
39:44 That is free.
39:45 And that’s where some of our staff got crossed up.
39:48 So just to make sure, they need to call them in.
39:50 Yeah, when I say Parish is doing testing too, though, really, I
39:53 want to reiterate.
39:55 When I say Parish, I don’t necessarily mean Parish Hospital.
39:58 Right.
39:59 I mean their mobile van that’s out in the community.
40:02 Um, and I know they’re, and I don’t have it in front of me, I’m
40:05 sorry.
40:06 But I know at their, um, health and fitness center, they’re
40:09 testing one or two days a week.
40:11 And they’re going out in the community, you know, a couple days
40:13 a week.
40:14 So when I say Parish, I’m saying it more globally, but it’s not
40:17 the hospital.
40:18 Right.
40:19 Thank you for that clarification.
40:20 I’m sure they appreciate that as well.
40:22 Yeah.
40:23 All the hospitals.
40:24 Yeah.
40:25 They don’t want people going in for testing.
40:26 And do you know on that, um, on the van that’s going out?
40:30 And I think they actually have like five different locations in
40:32 the north area that they’re taking
40:34 the van to on our regular rotating schedule.
40:36 Do you know if they’re actually doing the pediatric testing?
40:39 I do not know that.
40:41 Okay.
40:42 Very good.
40:43 Um, and then one of the other things that we had talked about
40:47 was contact tracing.
40:50 Um, and you had indicated that you all are completely caught up
40:53 on, on contract tracing.
40:56 You’re meeting that 24 hour, um, initial contact with a positive
41:00 case.
41:01 Is that correct?
41:02 Correct.
41:03 So can you, um, can you explain to me how that works?
41:08 So you contact the person?
41:10 Is the person then asked to notify people they’ve been in
41:12 contact with?
41:13 Are you all actually reaching out?
41:15 What’s the process there?
41:17 Okay.
41:18 So if you’re positive, then we call you and then we, we go from
41:20 there in concentric circles.
41:22 Who lives in your household?
41:23 What are their risk factors?
41:24 Where have you been?
41:25 Who you’ve been with?
41:26 And then you then reach out to those folks and notify them that
41:30 they need to self quarantine.
41:33 So I would be the one reaching out to them directly.
41:37 Correct.
41:39 So, you know, I had a teacher reach out to me with a scenario
41:41 regarding contact tracing.
41:43 And she said that she had become aware of, um, a family where
41:47 the grandparents living in the home had tested positive.
41:52 And there were two children in the home that were school age.
41:55 In that situation, would the district be notified that the
41:59 children are in a home with people who have tested positive?
42:03 Or would that be up to the parents to notify us?
42:05 Yeah.
42:06 That’s up to the parents.
42:07 Okay.
42:08 I didn’t hear him.
42:09 He said it was up to the parents to notify us.
42:12 So, um, cause we wouldn’t necessarily know even.
42:19 That’s what I was asking.
42:20 We could cross address.
42:22 So when you, uh, when you speak with someone who’s positive and
42:25 you have that conversation with them and they say, well, in my
42:29 home is my son and my daughter-in-law and their two children.
42:33 That would, I guess what I’m getting at is, is we’re really, we’re
42:37 relying on the honor system, right?
42:40 Correct.
42:41 Okay.
42:42 So was there a time because I’ve had several people reach out to
42:45 me and indicate that they had tested positive, but had not
42:48 gotten a call from the department of health.
42:51 Was there a time where we were lagging?
42:53 Well, there was, there was delays early on, particularly more in
42:56 the beginning portion of July, just because of the numbers of
42:59 cases.
43:00 I mean, we were getting 200, 200 cases a day.
43:02 So if you can imagine.
43:03 Right.
43:04 Uh, trying to manage through that, including the weekend.
43:07 Um, it was a challenge and, and yet we we’ve gotten caught up
43:11 and now we are, we are reaching out to everybody.
43:15 Now, again, some people have bad phone numbers.
43:17 Some people don’t call you back.
43:18 Some people blow you off.
43:20 I mean, yeah, I can only imagine that would be difficult.
43:25 And I want to point out that I absolutely understand it’s a
43:27 resource issue as well.
43:29 You guys are, are doing a great job with a really small team.
43:31 So I don’t, I’m not trying to insinuate that things are not
43:33 being done efficiently.
43:35 I’m just trying to make sure that I understand the process so
43:37 that I can understand the risk associated.
43:39 And also, also we prioritize those, those cases.
43:43 So for example, if you’re 60 or older, then you’re higher on our
43:46 radar of wanting to reach out to you and make sure you’re
43:48 protected because you may have an elderly spouse or something
43:51 like that.
43:52 If you’re on the lower end of the spectrum, then you’re not as
43:54 high a priority.
43:56 We will get to you, but you’re just not as high a priority.
43:59 Um, and we do that.
44:01 And then you’ve got the variables of what sort of test did you
44:03 actually have?
44:04 Did you have an antigen test?
44:06 Did you have a PCR test?
44:07 Had you been to a provider?
44:09 Had you been to a hospital?
44:11 Was this a nursing?
44:12 So there’s all these variables that go into how aggressively we
44:16 pursue you.
44:17 Okay.
44:18 But at this point we’re, we’re caught up and we are caught up.
44:21 Making contact speech and everyone.
44:23 We are caught up.
44:24 So, so when you, um, when you say that you’re making contact
44:29 with every positive within 24 hours, that doesn’t necessarily
44:33 mean that you’ve actually spoken with them, right?
44:36 It means that you’ve attempted outreach.
44:38 Correct.
44:39 Okay.
44:40 So that’s probably where some of the confusion is coming from
44:41 because you have those situations where people don’t respond or
44:45 the, the number is not correct or whatever.
44:48 The other thing I will add is, you know, when we talk about the
44:51 rapid testing, which is the antigen testing, the rapid testing,
44:56 those results don’t necessarily come directly to us.
45:01 Those results get reported onto the state.
45:03 And the premise there is if you had the antigen point in time
45:06 testing, you’ve seen a medical provider.
45:09 That’s, that’s the only place you can get that done.
45:13 So, but those states, those, and we do count them as positives.
45:18 Yes.
45:19 But there is a longer lag time between us even knowing about it,
45:25 um, which is why we’ve talked to, um, to Chris.
45:31 If a parent says my child went in and had the antigen testing
45:34 and it’s positive, please bring that to our attention.
45:38 Please show that to us so that we can act on it.
45:41 But there will definitely be a lag time in the antigens getting
45:44 to us.
45:45 And do you have an estimate of how different that lag time is
45:49 compared to the PCR?
45:51 Like we, you’ve said that it’s roughly five to seven days.
45:54 Is that inclusive, inclusive of PCR and antigen or is that?
45:59 Well, antigen would be virtually immediate.
46:02 Okay.
46:03 That’s just rapid.
46:04 And that gets faxed to the state.
46:07 Now, when they actually uploaded into our database where we can
46:11 see it, I don’t know how long that takes.
46:14 Okay.
46:15 That’s what I was after was how long is it before you all are
46:18 aware of those, those numbers?
46:20 Don’t know.
46:21 Okay.
46:22 So can I just clarify something that you asked?
46:26 So, because we have, there’s a, there, we’re talking about a
46:29 delay in people answering phones.
46:31 That is from you guys being able to communicate and, and talk
46:35 about contact tracing.
46:37 But the people are getting their, they’re, they’re not waiting
46:39 to get their positive results from you.
46:42 They’re, you know, they can log on.
46:44 No, they get their results from the provider at the office.
46:46 As soon as they’re, right.
46:47 They walk out knowing their results.
46:49 Right.
46:50 For the, but even for the PCR testing.
46:52 They’re, you know, they’re able to see it as soon as they can
46:55 log on and, you know.
46:56 Right.
46:58 If they, if they.
46:58 Sometimes there’s dual, there’s dual communication.
47:00 Right.
47:01 The provider’s already contact.
47:02 Right.
47:04 Try to let the provider reach out first.
47:05 But, you know, usually the last time there’s dual communication.
47:08 They’re, oh, I already knew that.
47:10 My doctor’s all here or whatever.
47:11 Right.
47:12 And that’s cool.
47:13 That’s good.
47:14 Right.
47:15 Yeah.
47:16 And I was going to say, and you’re right.
47:17 LabCorp and Quest have your own self portals that, that you can
47:20 see.
47:21 You know, the other thing I want to mention on the whole contact
47:23 tracing.
47:24 Contact tracing has become very visible now during this
47:28 coronavirus epidemic here pandemic
47:31 that we have going on.
47:32 But contact tracing is not new.
47:34 Contact tracing is the basic science of epidemiology.
47:38 So we in epidemiology have done contact tracing since the
47:42 beginning of time.
47:44 That’s what we do with every disease process.
47:47 Whether it be chicken pox or Shigella or meningitis or whatever
47:53 it happens to be, we do contact tracing.
47:57 It’s just become very visible now as to what contact tracing is,
48:01 but it’s not new.
48:03 All right.
48:04 Anyone else have any questions for our partners at Department of
48:08 Health?
48:09 I do have a question for them.
48:11 It’s not necessarily related to metrics, but it has to do with
48:14 our relationship with the
48:16 Department of Health and how we’re moving forward.
48:19 So as we’ve gone through our reopening plan, which you guys were
48:22 an integral part of, and,
48:25 you know, you’ve looked at it.
48:26 You told us last time you were with us that it was a good, solid
48:28 plan.
48:29 You know, one of the things that we’re going to be dealing with
48:33 is when a student or an employee
48:36 has a positive result or is a presumptive case because they are
48:40 living with someone who has
48:42 a positive case, and how we deal with that and the letters that
48:44 go out.
48:45 And I just had a little bit of a concern, and let me explain why
48:49 I’m concerned, with what
48:52 happened as a result of our graduations.
48:54 And so I just want to know how we’re going to – I know we’re
48:57 going to work hand in hand,
48:59 but ultimately those letters that go out come from the
49:00 Department of Health and not from
49:02 the school district.
49:03 So what happened was we had – we found out that someone
49:06 attended one of our graduations,
49:08 a couple of our graduations, who had a positive result.
49:11 And the letter was sent out to all of the graduates and to the
49:15 attendees saying there was a positive
49:18 case at the graduation, so you all need to quarantine for 14
49:23 days.
49:24 So I have a problem with that, and I just want to know how are
49:27 we going to do differently
49:28 from that, because here’s their problem.
49:30 We couldn’t get any – and I know we have to protect HIPAA, but
49:33 I – you know, we couldn’t
49:34 even say it was someone on the field, it was someone in the
49:36 stands.
49:37 And I know we’re all having abundance of caution, but here’s my
49:39 concern.
49:40 If I was at a graduation and I knew it was an attendee in, let’s
49:44 say, the West stands,
49:46 but I knew I sat in the East stands, and when the graduation was
49:48 over, I didn’t talk to anybody,
49:51 I went straight to my car, you know, or it was someone on the
49:54 field, and I didn’t interact
49:56 with anybody on the field.
49:58 So then we’ve just put hundreds of people, and because it was a
50:01 couple graduations, a couple
50:03 thousand people, potentially, in quarantine for 14 days, when
50:07 the majority – at an event
50:08 where we were outdoors in a huge football arena, and people had
50:11 masks on, and they were socially
50:13 distanced, and so we’re about to send people back into schools,
50:15 and we’re going to be washing
50:17 our hands, and we’re doing social distancing, physical
50:20 distancing.
50:21 People have taken issue with the social work, because they want
50:23 us to still be social.
50:24 But – and wearing masks and all that stuff.
50:27 So I want us to be cautious, but I think I’m having a little
50:32 problem with that, because
50:34 then it’s getting out of the – and the reason why I’m taking
50:35 issue is then we have the next
50:37 week someone come to a board meeting and say, “We had an
50:39 outbreak at a graduation.”
50:41 I’m like, “We didn’t have an outbreak at graduation.”
50:43 Can you kind of speak to that and how we’re going to move
50:44 forward with the communication?
50:47 Well, what I can say is, no, we can’t tell you who, where, what,
50:52 when, because that’s
50:53 a violation of HIPAA, unfortunately.
50:57 We do the best we can to identify – I mean, once the school day
51:02 starts, there’ll be a
51:03 much better opportunity, because I think we’ll all be in sync of
51:06 what we’re talking about.
51:08 I can say the letters are form letters, but we don’t send the
51:11 letters out.
51:12 We recommend the letters being sent out.
51:14 So –
51:15 But we don’t write the letters.
51:17 No, there are letters, but it’s in conjunction, you know, with
51:21 district staff in actually sending
51:24 the letters out.
51:25 And I believe that’s going to be part of what the whole resource
51:28 team is going to be, correct?
51:30 Chris?
51:31 Yes, the response team, and recommendations when letters should
51:44 go out.
51:47 Yeah, just a couple things.
51:49 There’s two different letters.
51:50 One is a letter related to students, and that’s the letter we
51:52 get from the Department of Health.
51:54 The other is a letter related to employees, and that’s one that
51:56 we generate here.
51:58 You know, from the onset, we decided, we made a decision that we
52:01 were going to follow CDC
52:03 and DOH recommendations.
52:04 It is not for us to second guess what medical experts are
52:07 telling us.
52:09 So when they recommend, we follow suit.
52:12 Yes, the response team, we’re working on our finalized plan for
52:15 what that looks like if we
52:18 have to do contact tracing and close a class down, a building
52:21 down, you know, a feeder system
52:24 down.
52:25 So we should have that ready for you guys to look at probably
52:28 the very beginning of next
52:30 week, Tuesday-ish.
52:32 But in terms of those letters, when school is back in session,
52:37 we will have a much better
52:41 handle on exactly who our contacts to case is.
52:45 And we very specifically, even over the summer as we were doing
52:49 return to activity letters
52:51 and letters due to just having, you know, employees on campus,
52:56 we very specifically said
52:58 these letters only go out to the identified contacts to case.
53:01 Those people who are within six feet for longer than 15 minutes
53:04 for two days up to the first
53:06 onset of symptoms.
53:07 So, yes, graduation was, we were unable to identify who those
53:16 people were.
53:18 But when school starts, our response team and our principals who
53:21 are going to be doing that
53:23 that in-school contact tracing are going to have a much better
53:25 handle and a much more conservative
53:27 approach to distributing those letters.
53:29 Okay.
53:30 Thank you.
53:31 Mr. Susan.
53:32 I had two things.
53:33 One was a follow-up to Ms. Campbell.
53:35 When I had asked earlier about that, those are protocols that
53:39 come directly down from the state on how
53:45 we’re supposed to notify people, right?
53:47 Or is that something that we’re developing here in the count?
53:51 As far as notifying all of the people at the graduation, hey,
53:56 you know what I mean?
53:57 There’s been a person that tested positive.
53:59 Has that come from the state or is that something we develop
54:01 here, that protocol right there?
54:03 That would be a local decision based on guidance that we receive
54:09 from the state, general guidance
54:11 from the state.
54:12 Okay.
54:13 Applying to the individual local decision.
54:16 I can say in those specific instances, we were not able to
54:19 identify the close contacts.
54:22 So, the error was in the side of caution rather than the other
54:27 way.
54:28 Sure.
54:29 No, that’s all.
54:30 But it’s general guidance, but then applying to a specific
54:34 situation was what we would do
54:36 locally.
54:37 Beautiful.
54:38 And then the other thing was, I took a look at, I pulled up the
54:42 state, you know, reportings
54:44 and stuff like that to look at the number of cases over the last
54:46 two weeks, just like you
54:48 had said before.
54:49 And this isn’t so much a question for you, but I wanted to just
54:51 kind of do something for
54:53 my board members.
54:55 We had specifically talked about how there was a difference
54:58 between like 4.4% and 8.6%,
55:01 right?
55:02 But one of the things that drives me crazy about these anomalies
55:05 is that on 727, 1300 people
55:09 tested, 88 tested positive at a 6.2%, right?
55:14 The very next day only four more people tested positive, but we
55:18 only tested 900 or only 975
55:21 tested positive or were tested.
55:24 So, the number’s 8.6%.
55:26 So, it jumped over two points in one day because less people
55:31 tested.
55:32 Does that make sense to you?
55:33 And then if you move down, you go down to 731, 2000 people were
55:38 tested that day, 98 positives.
55:42 So, now all of a sudden we’re at 4.4%.
55:44 So, the numbers are moving even though the, and it’s based on,
55:48 you’re consistently getting
55:50 numbers in certain days that are 88, 92, 80, 86, and they’re
55:55 varying two to four points based
55:58 on the number of people that are in there.
56:00 So, when I was talking about going to a more, a stable number,
56:03 which is your, just like Misty
56:06 was speaking to early, Ms. Belford, about your population per
56:08 100,000, it gives us a more
56:11 of a stable point for our data.
56:13 That’s all.
56:14 And I, I’m going to send this to you guys right now.
56:16 Well, I think that’s why the seven day rolling average and the
56:19 14 day rolling average,
56:20 because as Ms. Ball shared with us the last time, that we could
56:22 still just don’t look at
56:24 one day.
56:25 We need to look at our trends.
56:26 And so, if we do the averages, then we’re getting the trends.
56:30 Yeah.
56:31 But even in the rolling averages piece, you’re, you’re, you’re
56:33 still showing up how many people
56:35 came in seven days, as opposed to how many people came in the
56:37 other seven days.
56:38 There’s, in statistics, you always try to look for one common
56:42 data point that’s stable
56:44 to try to get all of the other data points off of.
56:46 And it’s just a varying number.
56:47 That’s all.
56:48 I just wanted to kind of, for a lot of the people out there that
56:49 were saying, hey,
56:51 there’s 8.6%.
56:52 What day was that?
56:53 We only tested four more positive people than the day before,
56:55 which was 6.2%.
56:56 Well, I mean, you could take these same numbers and just do
56:57 numbers of cases divided by the
57:00 population of the county every day.
57:02 Yep.
57:03 I did it.
57:04 That’s all.
57:05 I just wanted to point that out.
57:10 Thank you.
57:11 Thank you, Mr. Susan.
57:14 Any more questions for friends at the Department of Health?
57:19 I have one last one, I think, before I let you all relax.
57:25 The letter that came out from Commissioner Corcoran to Hillsborough
57:29 County seemed to hint
57:31 at how we handle situations going forward if we have positivity
57:38 in our schools.
57:41 Have you all received any direction that you should be working
57:47 to avoid school closures in the event of positive cases in our
57:51 schools?
57:52 No.
57:53 Okay.
57:54 No.
57:55 Say that louder.
57:56 And I think that that is all an individual, you know, with, we’re
58:02 talking shutting a whole school system down is totally different
58:05 than shutting a classroom down or a school down based on
58:08 something that’s going on in that individual school or
58:10 individual classroom.
58:11 And we have always worked with the district on an outbreak going
58:18 on in a school saying, you know, we need to stop or stop their
58:23 classroom.
58:24 And it doesn’t happen often.
58:25 It’s going to happen.
58:26 It is going to happen because I can say we are going to have
58:30 cases.
58:31 Hopefully we will not have cases and spreading of cases within
58:35 schools because I truly feel very confident that the district
58:40 plan, that the plan that you guys have is excellent to minimize
58:44 the spread.
58:46 But all the teachers and all the children are out in the
58:49 community.
58:51 I mean, that’s the reality here.
58:53 So I think we are going to have cases, but no one has ever said,
58:56 and you know, we’re not going to shut down.
59:00 Dr. Mullins is going to shut down.
59:02 We’re going to recommend based on what is going on in the school.
59:08 And that’ll be part of the, of the resource team.
59:11 So you are, you are free to make a recommendation.
59:14 Based on, based on a disease process in a school for anything.
59:20 Yes.
59:21 Okay.
59:22 That’s, I just wanted to make sure.
59:23 Yes.
59:24 Ms. Moore.
59:25 I was going to say, it’s the response team.
59:26 I know you keep saying the resource team, but it’s the response
59:27 team.
59:28 Response team.
59:29 Whatever.
59:31 But we did meet, Dr. Thetty and I did meet with all, all three
59:33 of the members from the DOH yesterday, as well as Patty Siebert
59:37 and Helen.
59:38 I don’t know Helen’s last name.
59:39 Medlin.
59:42 To review what that looks like based on closing classes for
59:46 three to 10 days.
59:48 With a rolling two week review or closing feeder systems.
59:53 If, if it takes it to that school or schools.
59:55 So we are on board with the same plan.
59:56 We’ve reviewed it.
59:57 I’ve sent them the, the new draft.
59:58 The cabinet’s looking at the new draft on Monday.
59:59 And we should be able to roll it out.
1:00:00 Like I said to you guys shortly thereafter.
1:00:01 But there’s, there’s no question that it’s part of the process
1:00:02 that we look at what’s within our scope.
1:00:05 And what’s within our scope.
1:00:06 And what’s within our scope is to respond to the illnesses that
1:00:08 we see.
1:00:09 And to make recommendations to Dr. Mullins about closing
1:00:10 buildings based on that.
1:00:11 Thank you.
1:00:12 All right.
1:00:13 Anyone else have any more questions?
1:00:14 Thank you all so much for once again being so freely giving of
1:00:18 your time and expertise to guide us through this challenging
1:00:25 time.
1:00:26 All right.
1:00:27 Board members, I believe we have two things on our schedule
1:00:30 today.
1:00:31 One is the session of where we go from here.
1:00:32 If we’re going to establish the metrics for us to analyze as a
1:00:33 board to make decisions going forward.
1:00:36 One is the session of where we go from here.
1:00:37 If we’re going to establish the metrics for us to analyze as a
1:00:37 board to make decisions going forward.
1:00:41 And one is the session of where we go from here.
1:00:42 If we’re going to establish some metrics for us to analyze as a
1:00:45 board to make decisions going forward.
1:00:47 Um, and then the other being our emergency rules.
1:01:05 So did anyone want to weigh in on the establishment of any
1:01:08 metrics moving forward and where we go with that?
1:01:13 Uh, you know, if we just look at our discussion so far, it seems
1:01:18 like we are in the positivity rates or the cases per 100,000.
1:01:22 I mean, I’m comfortable.
1:01:23 Can you talk to us a little bit louder, Ms. Duskiewicz?
1:01:25 Can you not hear me?
1:01:26 I can now.
1:01:27 Can you?
1:01:28 That close?
1:01:29 Yeah.
1:01:30 Okay.
1:01:31 I was just saying that we, um, it seems like we’ve kind of honed
1:01:33 in on positivity rate over a two-week period of trend and maybe
1:01:35 the cases per 100,000.
1:01:37 And I’m comfortable with both of those as us taking a look at
1:01:39 them.
1:01:40 Uh, when we look at, um, we’re going to see.
1:01:42 When we look at other states and other counties and our governor’s
1:01:45 recommendation and even maybe what Miami-Dade is doing, I’m
1:01:49 comfortable with that below 10.
1:01:51 Definitely five is a, is what the American Pediatrics
1:01:54 Association, that’s where I think we need to be.
1:01:58 But if we’re trending down, which we have been the last two
1:02:01 weeks, um, maybe we periodically meet and, or we get a
1:02:06 notification from you all if it looks like we’re trending up and
1:02:09 then we meet and reevaluate.
1:02:10 If we have a two week trend up, obviously something’s going to
1:02:13 have to change, but from what I’m looking at right now with the
1:02:17 two week trend down, uh, I think we’re, where we need to be.
1:02:19 Thanks.
1:02:20 Anyone else?
1:02:21 I agree with Ms. Desevich.
1:02:21 I think five is where we’d like to be.
1:02:22 And we are trending down.
1:02:23 Um, 10 seems like a very high number to me and nowhere does any
1:02:33 medical professional recommend 10.
1:02:39 Um, our governor does, um, but my bigger question to us is if we
1:02:45 set a metrics, what are we willing to do with that?
1:02:51 So where do we go if we set a metrics and it goes above?
1:02:57 So as a board, where are we going?
1:03:02 Um, if I may, in my opinion, I think that that metric is
1:03:06 probably around 10.
1:03:09 Cause like you said that in, in all cases, that’s high.
1:03:12 I’m not willing today to say hard and fast.
1:03:14 We hit eight or we hit 10 and we’re, we’re done.
1:03:17 But I say we, we have an emergency meeting and we sit down and
1:03:20 we take a look and we bring them back in and we evaluate where
1:03:23 we’re at,
1:03:23 why the numbers are reaching that high over a two week period.
1:03:26 And I don’t, I don’t think we can make everything so different
1:03:28 from day to day.
1:03:30 Um, so I, I feel like, you know, maybe that triggers an
1:03:33 emergency meeting for us.
1:03:35 Mr. Susan.
1:03:38 So when I look at this, I, um, and the reason I was asking the
1:03:41 questions with the hospital beds,
1:03:44 the plan to population, and I was running the numbers from one
1:03:48 week to the next,
1:03:50 it varies almost 1500 tests over the last three weeks.
1:03:54 So when we talk about putting a metrics together based upon the
1:03:57 tests, it drives me crazy.
1:03:59 Like I, I know that this is a theme that I keep doing, but I, I
1:04:02 can’t, I can’t look at a statistic where we’re looking at the
1:04:06 number of people that came in to test,
1:04:09 as opposed to the number of positivities to give a point.
1:04:12 What I would rather do is see it come back down, even if it’s a
1:04:15 really, really small number and do it towards a population,
1:04:19 whether that’s to 100,000 or to 591,000, which is what we were
1:04:23 our last one that we had.
1:04:25 Um, so that number I would rather see in there.
1:04:29 And, and there’s some statistics from Germany and some of the
1:04:32 other European countries that went to that model.
1:04:35 And they use a certain, um, numbers 0.005 and stuff like that.
1:04:40 So that’s, uh, that is a standard that’s being used in other
1:04:42 places, um, successfully.
1:04:44 The other thing I would say is for me, before we just say, oh,
1:04:47 it’s, it’s there.
1:04:48 We should be looking at also the other metrics, which are the
1:04:51 death rates.
1:04:52 Also the hospital beds and percentages in the ICU.
1:04:55 Um, and I love the idea of the red, orange, yellow, green per
1:04:59 day based upon these.
1:05:01 But here’s where I come from is that if the death rates are, are
1:05:06 going up, if our trends are going up,
1:05:10 if our positive to the population is going up, there’s that
1:05:14 piece where they were talking about,
1:05:17 we would move from phase one to phase two to phase three
1:05:20 medically, right?
1:05:22 I truly believe that before we decide to, okay, it hit 10%.
1:05:27 We’re having a meeting and we’re going to close schools or not
1:05:29 close schools.
1:05:30 I think that we need to form a mini group of the DOH, some of
1:05:34 the hospital groups.
1:05:35 And so when that decision is coming down, we are able to ask
1:05:38 them hospitals.
1:05:40 Do you guys have conversion to beds, right?
1:05:43 Are these death rates to the long term care facilities?
1:05:46 Or are they our ages that we’re in?
1:05:49 Um, and, and I think, so I think that there’s a metrics there.
1:05:52 So when you asked me to, that’s the reason I couldn’t get there
1:05:54 last week,
1:05:55 was I would put together a metrics of death rates, hospital beds
1:05:58 and ICU,
1:05:59 and positive to population.
1:06:01 And then I would base that as a certain metrics, which I’ve done
1:06:05 all the numbers over the last two weeks,
1:06:06 come up with some ideas.
1:06:07 But then at the end of that, we then would have the meeting with
1:06:10 the local officials to make sure that we’re moving forward in
1:06:14 the right.
1:06:15 And philosophically, we have a question to ask ourselves.
1:06:18 Are we going to close schools because of the effect that it has
1:06:21 on the community?
1:06:23 Or are we going to close schools because of the effect it’s
1:06:25 having on our students?
1:06:27 And I think that’s another piece that we should be talking about
1:06:28 too.
1:06:29 Because we may find that a lot of our, um, 50 to 70 to 80 year
1:06:33 old individuals in the county are the ones testing positive.
1:06:37 And that’s moving up and the trend rate for our median age is
1:06:41 moving up.
1:06:42 But in the same case, our students are not the ones that are
1:06:44 getting sick.
1:06:45 And the students aren’t the ones that are, that are carrying it.
1:06:47 So in that case, we philosophically have to ask ourselves, are
1:06:50 we part of a whole of the community?
1:06:52 And we shut down based upon the community spread that we may be
1:06:55 creating inside the schools?
1:06:57 Or are we about keeping our schools open and continuing to go
1:07:00 through?
1:07:01 So that when you asked me about what I looked at, that’s where I
1:07:04 was at.
1:07:05 Um, and I can provide numbers, but I, I don’t know if we need to
1:07:09 be there.
1:07:10 Um, and I thought the board would also have some, some interjections
1:07:13 on that.
1:07:14 That’s all.
1:07:15 So that was my plan was to death rates, hospital beds and ICUs,
1:07:19 positive to population,
1:07:20 and then have a meeting with the appropriate officials to talk
1:07:23 about it prior to doing it.
1:07:25 And the other thing I was going to ask Mr. Gibbs, in 1991, I
1:07:30 played football for Jupiter High School.
1:07:32 And we were forced by the Department of Health to go play on the
1:07:36 weekends.
1:07:37 And the reason was, is because the mosquitoes were, were
1:07:41 carrying encephalitis and we were forced to play our games on
1:07:44 Saturday.
1:07:45 It stunk. I hated playing it. Right.
1:07:47 But when I looked back at the way the DOH did that, the DOH from
1:07:51 the state level was giving directives to the schools, setting
1:07:57 prior precedent from the 90s as to the direction of what their
1:08:01 role was with the Department of Education.
1:08:04 So my question to you is, can we look at that holistically and
1:08:07 see if there is prior precedence during the encephalitis
1:08:10 outbreak back in the 90s, or if you already have?
1:08:14 Prior precedence for what the DOH?
1:08:17 Yeah.
1:08:18 Making that call?
1:08:19 Yeah.
1:08:20 In, in rulemaking authority and government, we all know that you
1:08:24 depend on what has done prior as far as rules and regulations,
1:08:28 whether that’s your jurisdiction and it’s, you know, the, the,
1:08:32 what they’ve done in the past and had rulemaking authority to do
1:08:35 so in the past governs what they can do in the future.
1:08:39 So if they had given directive from the DOH at the state level
1:08:42 to shut down schools, to play sports and to not have any
1:08:45 activities after hours and to do all those things, that sets
1:08:49 prior precedent to allow them to do the same now.
1:08:53 Does that make sense?
1:08:54 Yeah, I get where you’re going.
1:08:55 Okay.
1:08:56 That’s all.
1:08:57 They have statutory authority to say certain kids can’t attend
1:08:59 school.
1:09:00 So if you have a chicken pox outbreak and you have kids who
1:09:02 haven’t been vaccinated or have never had it, they can say those
1:09:05 kids who are susceptible cannot attend until it’s up.
1:09:08 They can’t attend until it’s under control.
1:09:10 That’s in statute.
1:09:11 Okay.
1:09:12 All right.
1:09:13 Thank you, Mr. Gibbs.
1:09:14 Yep.
1:09:15 Ms. Campbell, did you want to weigh in?
1:09:18 Well, I would just, you know, my, my question is the same as it
1:09:21 was a couple of weeks when we talked about this subject, which
1:09:25 is to what ends?
1:09:27 Um, we’re going to establish a metric to shut, I mean, I’m
1:09:30 assuming to shut the whole entire district down.
1:09:34 But, you know, Mr. Susan brings up a very important point, which
1:09:38 is our numbers overall at the county could start to go up.
1:09:43 I mean, if we have a couple of, we, we have a large, um, older
1:09:48 population in our county.
1:09:51 Um, and we have a couple of long-term care facilities, which we
1:09:54 have a lot of those as well.
1:09:56 A couple of outbreaks at a long-term care facility and our
1:09:58 numbers would go up, but it wouldn’t necessarily be affecting
1:10:00 our day-to-day operations.
1:10:02 And, and our schools and, and our, our, um, school families and
1:10:06 our staff.
1:10:07 So, which makes it difficult to just tie it to that.
1:10:11 But I would just say, you know, one of the things that I, um,
1:10:15 have started to look at is our other, you know, our other
1:10:18 counties around the state.
1:10:20 And so just, and just to see what the ramifications are, if you
1:10:23 want to look, you know, Hillsboro has been in the news because
1:10:26 of what they, um, were doing last week in the response by the,
1:10:30 um, the commissioner of education and by the governor.
1:10:35 Um, Hillsboro is, um, close to 10 in their rolling average.
1:10:40 And I’m sorry, I just kept, I just started looking at the other
1:10:42 counties, um, a couple of days ago, as far as I was looking at
1:10:44 them, but following their trends.
1:10:46 Um, I just think that we, yeah, I, I just hate to repeat
1:10:51 everything that I said a couple of weeks ago, but I just, you
1:10:55 know, we’re, when we have, um,
1:11:04 I’m trying to put my thoughts together, sorry.
1:11:07 Um, it’s going to be such an impact, you know, and I, the point
1:11:14 was made in the last couple of days, um, that even, and I, I can’t
1:11:20 verify this because I haven’t looked at, um, this myself, but
1:11:24 that even Miami-Dade is looking at their students that they
1:11:28 absolutely can’t meet their needs in any other ways.
1:11:30 And they’re going to be, um, having those students on campus in
1:11:33 person.
1:11:34 Um, and I’m assuming that’s the, maybe the, um, uh, what’s the
1:11:40 word I’m looking for?
1:11:43 Not underserved, uh, self-contained classrooms.
1:11:47 Um, are you, are you, Dr. Mullins, have you heard the same, I
1:11:50 mean, I know they’re starting to plan, they’re taking their
1:11:53 whole campus online through a certain time, but that they even
1:11:56 have some students that they’re saying their campuses will be
1:11:58 opened.
1:11:59 Does that sound familiar?
1:12:01 Yes, that’s my understanding.
1:12:02 Okay.
1:12:03 So, so even Miami-Dade, who is the worst of the worst and you
1:12:05 can, uh, in our state as far as numbers and, and every metric,
1:12:08 um, they realize that there are some students that they can’t
1:12:12 serve except for brick and mortar.
1:12:14 Um, and you know, when the, I read through the letter that
1:12:17 Commissioner Corcoran put out last Friday and one of the things
1:12:21 he said was, okay, um, you want to do that and, and very, you
1:12:26 know, alter your plan.
1:12:28 We’re gonna have to submit a separate plan and we’re gonna have
1:12:31 to be willing to, um, to go and give the reasons why school by
1:12:34 school, if we’re gonna say, you know, and, and what we’re gonna
1:12:37 do to meet those needs.
1:12:39 And we just have to realize, I’m, I do, I will reiterate this
1:12:41 and repeat this again.
1:12:43 If we go all virtual, we are not going to serve our students
1:12:47 well, not all of them.
1:12:50 We’re gonna serve the students well whose families can support
1:12:53 them.
1:12:54 And even with the device, even if we give them a device and even
1:12:56 if we give them a hotspot, we’re just not going to be doing it
1:13:01 well.
1:13:03 And, um, I just think we need to have some, some pretty good
1:13:09 reasons, um, not to do that.
1:13:12 And I, I like to talk about, because I, some people have said,
1:13:14 oh, you’re just looking at your bottom line.
1:13:16 And let me, let’s just talk about the funding issue for just a
1:13:18 minute.
1:13:19 Um, it’s not about the district’s bottom line.
1:13:22 I think people need to realize that, um, why the funding is
1:13:25 different.
1:13:26 And we haven’t, I don’t know that we’ve delved into this really
1:13:28 specifically.
1:13:29 So can we just talk about a little bit?
1:13:31 Because the, um, at the round table yesterday, the commissioner
1:13:34 and the governor talked about this a little bit more.
1:13:35 Um, when the funding is different, this is just for people who
1:13:40 may listening.
1:13:41 I know we all know this funding is different for, for virtual
1:13:43 schools.
1:13:44 Um, you, you don’t get the same, you don’t get a transportation
1:13:48 categorical because obviously if you’re taking school virtually
1:13:51 then you don’t need transportation.
1:13:53 Um, and you also don’t get the class size amendment funding,
1:13:57 which is, uh, because virtual classes, teachers can have a much
1:14:01 larger class, larger class load.
1:14:02 And I don’t know what the limit is, Dr. Sullivan, if you know,
1:14:05 um, for virtual classes, if there, if there is a, a thing.
1:14:09 top end for how many students that they can have at a time you
1:14:14 know that is but
1:14:16 it’s not limited because they don’t have that one-on-one they
1:14:19 don’t have one-on-one
1:14:19 interaction with the students except for when they have to give
1:14:21 them a test and
1:14:22 so so that is a significant amount of money but again it’s not
1:14:26 bottom line
1:14:27 but if if if we decide to go all virtual and this is what Hillsborough
1:14:32 was told
1:14:32 if you decide to go all virtual you can you can make that
1:14:35 decision you are going
1:14:37 to not have the full funding you can have your full regular FTE
1:14:41 funding but
1:14:41 not your full categorical funding because why do you need
1:14:45 transportation
1:14:46 funding if you’re not transporting kids which is so they either
1:14:49 have to make
1:14:50 decision do we continue to pay bus drivers even though they’re
1:14:53 not doing
1:14:53 anything and we don’t have the money for it or we’re going to be
1:14:56 letting go of
1:14:56 people same thing with class size if they don’t get the class
1:15:00 size dollars because
1:15:01 they’re teaching everybody virtually are they going to continue
1:15:06 to keep
1:15:07 all those employees on when they don’t have the funding to do it
1:15:09 are they going to let go of
1:15:10 teachers and go to the whole entire district on a virtual model
1:15:14 that’s not
1:15:17 about our bottom line that’s about about having to let go of
1:15:21 people and I don’t
1:15:22 want it I don’t send that I don’t want to send shockwaves of
1:15:24 fear through this but
1:15:25 that’s just reality that is what that funding is for and if we’re
1:15:29 going to teach
1:15:30 in a virtual model then we’re going to get funded in a virtual
1:15:33 model
1:15:33 so again we just something and everybody I I don’t know that’s
1:15:43 that’s what I have to say about that I’ll stop thank you
1:15:47 Madam Chair if I may just add for the further clarification of
1:15:50 Brevard Virtual
1:15:51 School in addition to reduce funding there is an additional cost
1:15:55 to the district to pay
1:15:56 the I’ll call it a subscription fee for the curriculum for
1:16:00 students in Brevard Virtual
1:16:01 School so there’s a cost on top of the reduced FTE funding as
1:16:04 well okay thank
1:16:06 you miss Belford can I say one other thing sure so the other
1:16:11 piece that I had to those metrics was to keep an eye that
1:16:14 geographically we may be able to work with inside of what we’re
1:16:19 trying to do
1:16:20 because I know Titusville may do a great job up there and Parrish
1:16:23 may be doing great
1:16:24 jobs and maybe another area in the county may not so and I think
1:16:28 I heard miss Moore
1:16:29 talking about you know what I mean feeder chains and stuff like
1:16:31 that so I think
1:16:32 that plays into it and you know there’s a another piece that we
1:16:37 we haven’t really
1:16:37 looked at is the economics and cost of what our health insurance
1:16:42 would be doing
1:16:44 if all of our people started to incur positive tests and end up
1:16:48 in the hospital
1:16:49 because there becomes a point of no return on our in health
1:16:53 insurance because we’re
1:16:54 self-insured that if we start seeing that a lot of our employees
1:16:59 who are dealing with
1:16:59 a lot of the children that are coming in are testing positive
1:17:03 and they start ending up in
1:17:04 ICUs the cost of our health insurance plan is already at a bare
1:17:08 minimum and where we’re at
1:17:09 so if we start incurring costs there that’s another factor to
1:17:12 take a look at for our schools too that’s all
1:17:16 that’s it thank you mr susan um
1:17:21 so first um i’m going to kind of work backwards um from some of
1:17:28 the stuff that’s been said um
1:17:29 i think one thing that that our public also misses with regard
1:17:35 to uh the directives from the state and
1:17:38 what what we’re being told to do is that currently our e-learning
1:17:43 model is not supported by statute and
1:17:45 so that’s one of the flexibilities that comes with the emergency
1:17:48 order so in reality if we were to opt to
1:17:52 go all e-learning and bvs the e-learning doesn’t qualify us for
1:17:58 funding and doesn’t qualify us for seat time
1:18:02 and doesn’t qualify for any of that so i think that has to be a
1:18:06 necessary consideration as well that the
1:18:08 you know that opportunity would go away for our families and and
1:18:13 while bvs does a great job
1:18:15 that doesn’t necessarily work for all students and i think that’s
1:18:18 an important point that we have to
1:18:20 keep in mind is we have to serve all of our students to your
1:18:23 point miss campbell i’m not even suggesting that
1:18:26 we go 100 online necessarily because i do think that there are
1:18:30 some students that need to be served in
1:18:32 a face-to-face environment unfortunately our governor and our
1:18:37 commissioner of education
1:18:39 put down an edict that we must do face-to-face five days a week
1:18:45 full-time for all students
1:18:47 and in doing that they took away options that we could have
1:18:53 easily addressed the social emotional
1:18:55 concerns the food insecurity concerns the delivery of service
1:18:59 concerns the mental health concerns with
1:19:02 a part-time face-to-face and a part-time online a hybrid model
1:19:06 if that’s you know many many states
1:19:09 are doing that to address those issues we don’t even have that
1:19:13 option under the emergency order that came
1:19:16 down um and i struggle quite frankly
1:19:23 i struggle with the discussion of 10 percent because that’s a
1:19:26 random number that our governor pulled
1:19:28 out of the sky not a single medical professional that i have
1:19:32 spoken with
1:19:33 has suggested that 10 positivity rate is safe for our kids to
1:19:38 return to school and the reason for that is
1:19:41 that it doesn’t matter if we do a hundred percent spectacular
1:19:45 job within our schools of everyone
1:19:47 being masked appropriately of everyone socially distancing
1:19:51 appropriately of phenomenal ventilation
1:19:53 in our classrooms what’s going on in our community is going to
1:19:56 impact our schools more than anything else
1:19:58 if you talk to the ceos of the hospitals they’ll tell you their
1:20:03 people are not testing positive from
1:20:05 exposure in the hospital their people are testing positive from
1:20:08 exposure in the community
1:20:10 from groups of staff members who are going out after work and
1:20:13 having dinner or going to the bar
1:20:14 or hanging out at someone’s house going to a barbecue on the
1:20:17 weekend that’s why the community
1:20:19 transmission number is so incredibly important to our ability to
1:20:23 open schools successfully and i will
1:20:24 go back to what i said last week or last time we met and that is
1:20:28 if we truly truly believe
1:20:32 that schools are important to our families and our students then
1:20:35 it is our paramount job to ensure that
1:20:39 we open them as safely as we possibly can so that our students
1:20:42 have continuity so that they can rely
1:20:46 on a schedule of going to school because quite frankly if our
1:20:49 teachers all test positive and we have
1:20:51 to shut down schools we’re not doing them any favors and that’s
1:20:55 what frustrates me about the edict
1:20:57 coming down from the state because our governor has randomly set
1:21:00 a 10 percent number and when the
1:21:03 health department said earlier this morning that the cdc has not
1:21:06 said five percent they have the
1:21:09 director of the cdc said anyone in a hot spot should not
1:21:13 consider opening schools and then later defined
1:21:16 that a hot spot is anyone over five percent and then i hear from
1:21:20 the department of health that well
1:21:22 our positivity rate is probably five to ten percent greater than
1:21:26 what we’re actually seeing in the
1:21:28 numbers and granted that’s statewide that’s nationwide that’s
1:21:31 everywhere just because we’re not testing
1:21:33 everyone but i want you guys to think for a minute about that
1:21:36 impact on our schools
1:21:37 if we have a five percent positivity rate and we have a school
1:21:42 of a thousand people
1:21:44 each and every day five people are walking into that school
1:21:49 covid positive
1:21:51 and don’t get me wrong i think our team has done a phenomenal
1:21:54 job of putting together a plan
1:21:56 to address and and mitigate and and create the safest
1:21:59 environment they possibly can
1:22:01 but i go back to what i said before it’s what’s going on in our
1:22:05 community
1:22:06 it doesn’t matter how well we do it in our schools
1:22:09 and the fact that our governor has said ten percent and then
1:22:14 silenced our local health officials to give us recommendations
1:22:18 which i’m furious about
1:22:21 that just doesn’t make sense to me he’s he’s not i don’t know
1:22:26 where he found a medical expert to tell
1:22:28 him ten percent because i can tell you guys i’ve spoken with
1:22:30 epidemiologists infectious disease
1:22:32 specialists you name it all over the country people who are not
1:22:35 under the thumb of the governor
1:22:36 and every single one of them has said anything over five percent
1:22:41 is really dangerous for you guys to
1:22:43 open schools and i know we talk about kids not getting infected
1:22:47 and we can argue all day long about you know
1:22:49 you know whether kids are susceptible how sick they get when
1:22:52 they get it but we can’t run schools without
1:22:55 teachers and our teachers are susceptible and our students who
1:22:59 are adolescents are susceptible to share
1:23:03 that with our teachers and so i just really feel like we owe it
1:23:07 to our community to stand up and say
1:23:09 you know what i’m sorry at least let’s try and say let us serve
1:23:14 our most vulnerable students who truly
1:23:17 need to be served face to face but let us do something that
1:23:20 allows us to decrease our class sizes
1:23:22 so we have a greater chance and let us not throw 80 000 people
1:23:27 back into a face-to-face situation
1:23:29 when we’re experiencing high community spread levels and i get
1:23:34 we need to look at trends and not individual
1:23:36 studies but you cannot tell me that our trend over the past 7 to
1:23:41 14 days isn’t impacted by the close down
1:23:44 of the testing sites there’s obvious huge fluctuations in those
1:23:49 numbers so our current trend i have zero
1:23:51 faith in in addition to that we’ve got the double counting of of
1:23:56 the negative tests and that’s not
1:23:58 happening in other states it’s happening in florida and there’s
1:24:02 no way for us to say what the impact of
1:24:05 that is so for us to say 10 when well it probably is five or ten
1:24:09 percent higher than the actual 10
1:24:12 that’s being recorded because we’re not testing everyone oh and
1:24:15 then we’re also double counting all
1:24:17 of the negative tests which is driving our positivity rate down
1:24:19 it’s just infuriating to me and
1:24:24 i don’t know that we have options and it may not work and the
1:24:27 governor and the commissioner may say
1:24:28 we are not willing to work with you on this issue and give you
1:24:31 any flexibility but i feel like we owe
1:24:34 it to our community to stick with the medical advice and say
1:24:38 look all of these medical experts have said
1:24:41 we are putting people at risk by opening if we are over five
1:24:45 percent in our community
1:24:47 and i get it if everyone’s not willing to go that direction but
1:24:50 i feel like we are being bullied by the state based on quite
1:24:58 frankly a focus on economy if the
1:25:02 governor and the commissioner were were truly truly concerned
1:25:06 about our ability to serve students
1:25:07 effectively they would have given us an option that allowed us
1:25:11 to get our class sizes smaller
1:25:13 they would have given us an option for part-time face-to-face
1:25:17 and online learning but they didn’t
1:25:19 they mandated five days a week full-time and why did they do
1:25:24 that because their focus is on the
1:25:26 economy because they want parents to get back to work and quite
1:25:30 frankly that offends me
1:25:32 not because i don’t want to serve our families not because i it’s
1:25:36 not important for people to be working
1:25:39 but our teachers are professionals our staff members are
1:25:42 professionals and we’re going to focus on
1:25:45 economy over health and safety of an entire community
1:25:49 i just i really struggle with it i’m sorry it’s i’m incensed
1:25:55 with what’s going on at the state level
1:25:57 at this point in time miss belford yes i i hear you and i hear
1:26:03 your concerns and i am also concerned with
1:26:05 our with our i i care about our staff and i care about our
1:26:09 students and you know regardless of what
1:26:12 i say here that will be questioned that’s already been
1:26:14 questioned but i want us i just with a couple
1:26:18 of things that you said we need to be accurate and so we need to
1:26:21 be accurate we talked about double
1:26:23 counting of negative tests let’s just be real specific in what
1:26:26 that is when someone like if i’m worried
1:26:29 that i might have covid i could go get a test today next week i
1:26:33 could be worried about getting covid
1:26:35 again and i could go get tests you’re calling that a double
1:26:38 negative but the truth is it’s two
1:26:39 different situations i could be access here access here it’s
1:26:42 what she did say though that they’re
1:26:44 not counting negatives when someone has been positive right and
1:26:47 then their their employer has
1:26:49 said go get tested two more times and as soon as you’re negative
1:26:51 you can come back to work
1:26:52 which i think that guidance has changed that but some employers
1:26:54 still have that those aren’t
1:26:55 those aren’t being counted it’s one per case so just need to be
1:26:58 careful about how we say that because
1:27:00 that’s not necessarily accurate but someone could be tested
1:27:03 multiple times have been tested since
1:27:05 march because they’re concerned or because they’re a long-term
1:27:09 care facility and they have to test every
1:27:11 two weeks those get counted every time i don’t i don’t
1:27:13 necessarily have a problem with that the
1:27:15 other thing is you know people want to talk about the science
1:27:17 but we need to be real specific about
1:27:18 the math when we say a five percent positivity rate you can’t
1:27:22 take that because and i say that not
1:27:24 because just you said something a little while ago because i get
1:27:27 emails and i see it out on social
1:27:28 media everything they multiply that percentage times our entire
1:27:31 student employee population you just
1:27:33 can’t do that because if you want to do that it’s less than one
1:27:37 percent positive because that number
1:27:40 is the positivity rate of the people who came to be tested and
1:27:43 the majority of people come to be tested
1:27:45 have some of it is because they they work that way or they’re
1:27:48 just worried but most of them have had an
1:27:51 exposure or they have symptoms and they think they might have it
1:27:55 so i i hear what you’re saying about
1:27:57 it might be larger in the population but this is this is where
1:28:00 we are we have the numbers we have the
1:28:02 hospital rates we have the death rates we have the things that
1:28:05 we have with it as it is with the
1:28:08 numbers being reported as they are so i just you know and and i
1:28:12 hear saying about the economy but i i’m
1:28:15 not one of those people that when people start talking about the
1:28:17 economy goes oh you’re just a bunch of
1:28:19 greedy money grubbers that affects the health and wellness of
1:28:22 our families people going back to
1:28:25 work people going back to school it that absolutely economy is
1:28:30 not just about money for the state economy
1:28:33 is about the well-being of our citizenry and so i just you know
1:28:40 i i hear you and i know that you’re upset
1:28:44 about this and i you know i don’t necessarily um like the
1:28:48 decisions sometimes it feels like being
1:28:50 taken out of our hands but the truth is you know when we talk
1:28:53 about we can’t really know what we
1:28:55 would have done as a district if we hadn’t had those
1:28:57 restrictions as far as going staggered you know
1:28:59 a couple days here because it wasn’t presented to us so we don’t
1:29:01 really know how the board would feel
1:29:02 about that as it as it is i personally don’t think that model
1:29:05 meets the needs of our families
1:29:07 and would still have liked our families to have a choice because
1:29:10 some of our families some of our
1:29:11 kids they still need to be there every day thank you miss campbell
1:29:17 um and i agree that the the
1:29:20 specifics on the math are important um and they are they are not
1:29:23 in fact double negatives but one of the
1:29:26 things that i think is important to look at is the number for
1:29:29 example when i i asked i was i was driving
1:29:31 in and asked a question about the nursing homes one of the the
1:29:35 long-term care facilities in titusville
1:29:38 is testing their employees every two days so when you look at
1:29:41 the number of long-term care facilities
1:29:43 that we have in brevard county and the frequency which with
1:29:46 which they’re testing not to mention i know
1:29:48 people that that work with children um that are going and
1:29:51 getting tested once a week just to make sure that
1:29:53 they’re negative because they don’t want to expose anyone so
1:29:55 that’s where my concern comes
1:29:57 with us counting all of the negatives because i do think and and
1:30:01 you know i can send you information
1:30:03 later from an epidemiologist out of university of south florida
1:30:06 who studied the data extensively
1:30:08 who says yes there’s an impact i can’t nail down the impact
1:30:11 because the state doesn’t give me
1:30:12 granular enough data to tell you exactly what it is but there is
1:30:15 absolutely an impact
1:30:17 um so thank you for that that clarification um i i just want to
1:30:22 clarify i’m not saying anyone concerned
1:30:25 about the economy is is greedy money grabbers either and i do
1:30:28 believe that the economy is important
1:30:30 my husband is a small business owner my small business has been
1:30:33 wiped out this year
1:30:34 but i think it’s also important for us to consider that many of
1:30:40 the students who truly need to be in
1:30:45 school for closing achievement gaps for meeting some of those
1:30:47 social emotional needs for food food insecurity
1:30:50 many of those students
1:30:53 are also many of our most at-risk students for exposure and more
1:31:01 severe illness
1:31:02 with regard to covid and many of our students are coming from
1:31:08 families who are at greater risk from covid as
1:31:11 well for our at-risk students so there’s a lot of data out there
1:31:15 about demographics and absolutely i agree
1:31:18 we need to get people back to work and i want to serve our
1:31:21 students as best as possible and maybe the
1:31:23 staggered model is not it maybe it’s only bringing in our most
1:31:26 needy children to a face-to-face environment
1:31:29 my point is we don’t have the flexibility to do any of that but
1:31:33 what i do know is if we can’t get our class
1:31:36 sizes down and we can’t get our community spread down many of
1:31:39 those same students that we are so eager to
1:31:42 serve and ensure that we are addressing every need that they
1:31:46 have if we can
1:31:48 they’re coming from families who are going to be hit the hardest
1:31:52 by exposure they’re coming from
1:31:55 families where if you or i test positive and we have to
1:31:58 quarantine for 14 days we might be okay
1:32:01 but if if lower income family members test positive and can’t
1:32:06 work for two weeks
1:32:07 they might be out of luck they might be out of a job just
1:32:09 because the nature of the jobs that they tend to
1:32:11 work and so admittedly there is no easy answer here i don’t
1:32:15 think there’s necessarily a right answer
1:32:18 my concern is rushing in when all of the medical experts have
1:32:24 said one of the most crucial elements
1:32:27 of safe reopening of schools is community transmission rate and
1:32:31 our governor has decided that he’s going to
1:32:35 establish a random rate that is not in line with any of the
1:32:37 medical professionals
1:32:38 is incredibly concerning to me
1:32:40 thank you ladies um i just i don’t want to contradict but i do
1:32:48 have a question because i’m looking at
1:32:50 one of the spreadsheets that was sent to us about the stats of
1:32:55 other states and so the governor yes has
1:32:58 selected 10 positivity or less but it looks like other states
1:33:02 have picked numbers too and i’m just
1:33:04 wondering where that’s coming from so california has picked
1:33:07 below eight percent delaware ten percent
1:33:10 one state on here had 20 iowa 20 so the only thing 20 that’s
1:33:15 that’s mind-blowing if we’re really
1:33:18 focused in on five percent so i i don’t have the answer to that
1:33:22 but if anyone here does or has looked into
1:33:24 that or knows of what medical authority has given them guidance
1:33:28 in those numbers because it looks like
1:33:30 the states that are setting guidelines have set numbers and some
1:33:33 of them they’re so random and so
1:33:34 different i’m just curious where that came from and i i don’t
1:33:37 have the answer to that i can tell i mean
1:33:39 i can run through the list of people that i’ve spoken with that
1:33:42 have said that five percent and
1:33:43 downward trend over 14 days is critically important um and i i
1:33:46 think i gave it to you guys on a spreadsheet
1:33:48 before the director of the cdc dr fauci uh the surgeon general
1:33:52 for the united states the florida academy of
1:33:55 pediatrics uh spoke with the ceo of parish health center spoke
1:33:59 with the infectious disease disease
1:34:02 specialist out of nemours um you know it’s i don’t i don’t know
1:34:05 where their numbers are coming from but
1:34:08 i’m so just to clarify when i’m speaking with these people i’m
1:34:11 not saying here’s the number what do you
1:34:14 think of it i’m saying what is your threshold what is your
1:34:17 recommendation um and literally i i have not
1:34:21 had anyone i spoke with that said 10 or 20 is is appropriate for
1:34:25 opening schools not to mention
1:34:28 as as mr susan mentioned we see the the per hundred thousand
1:34:31 rates in other countries that have
1:34:32 successfully opened um and that’s you know that’s pretty
1:34:36 significant we are at 11 per hundred thousand
1:34:40 this week i believe yesterday is when i looked at the the number
1:34:43 for us per 100 000 um and the other
1:34:48 countries that opened were less than one per 100 000 new cases
1:34:52 per day with the exception of denmark
1:34:54 which was 3.5 per 100 000 per day at the time of reopening so i
1:35:00 just i don’t see how you give a
1:35:03 directive without solid medical advice behind that directive
1:35:06 that you’re giving to an entire state
1:35:10 so that’s where i’m at anyone else want to weigh in anyone mr
1:35:17 susan i think you’re right as far as
1:35:20 putting together a group of people for going forward to be able
1:35:22 to weigh in on that and um i don’t know if
1:35:25 you want to discuss how we put that together but um i think we
1:35:29 we definitely happy to hear that the
1:35:31 department of health has not been told that they cannot give a
1:35:34 recommendation going forward on
1:35:35 individual school closures but um i think you know getting the
1:35:41 voice of our local medical experts is
1:35:44 important as well and there’s some other stuff that’s coming six
1:35:47 months from now four months from
1:35:49 now when we we decide that when there’s a vaccine that’s
1:35:52 available and half of our people say we don’t
1:35:55 want to take the vaccine and all of a sudden this continues to
1:35:58 go down the road you know what i mean so
1:36:01 there’s needs to be another conversation around the back end of
1:36:04 not vaccinating versus anti-vaccinating
1:36:07 i don’t want to get into that mud but how long is this going to
1:36:11 go and what is the plan right because
1:36:14 the indicators from the community is is that there’s it’s 50 50
1:36:17 split on even if the vaccination comes
1:36:19 out that they’re actually even going to go do it so if that’s
1:36:22 the case and this numbers are going to
1:36:23 continue to go down like go like it is then we just need also a
1:36:27 long term and that’s why i think that
1:36:29 putting together a community team along with metrics that we can
1:36:32 look at i think is a good thing and
1:36:34 that that gives everybody the idea and moves forward i do i
1:36:37 think so thank you
1:36:38 miss mcdougall did you want to weigh in are you no i think a
1:36:44 team makes perfect sense and i certainly
1:36:48 agree with you the 10 percent number that’s been picked out of
1:36:51 the sky by your governor is ridiculous
1:36:54 because there are no medical officials that have come anywhere
1:36:57 near that number and our governor i
1:37:00 don’t believe is a medical official um so i i agree that i think
1:37:05 mr susan’s idea of putting together a
1:37:08 group to let’s reevaluate let’s look at it um i do feel you know
1:37:15 our our teens in our high school
1:37:20 transmit just like adults and that puts our staff and other
1:37:26 teens at risk and you’re right
1:37:29 miss belford when you say when they’re in our building we can
1:37:32 control it but when they leave our
1:37:34 building we don’t know where they’re going i don’t know if any
1:37:37 of you have gotten emails from your
1:37:38 constituents about some of our staff and where they’re going and
1:37:42 how horrible this is and what are
1:37:44 you going to do about it because they’re pottering pottering and
1:37:47 they’re drinking and all sorts of
1:37:49 things um we can’t control what people do outside our buildings
1:37:54 but how do we protect our staff and how
1:37:56 do we protect other children and um as we’ve always said it’s
1:38:01 not if it’s going to happen it’s when it’s
1:38:04 going to happen i i think we would be all um deluding ourselves
1:38:10 if we think it’s not going to happen
1:38:13 because it will happen that we will be closing a classroom or
1:38:17 let’s hope not a whole school
1:38:20 but i can do see that there will be classrooms that will have to
1:38:23 be closed
1:38:23 all right so um sounds are you all on board uh miss tuskevich
1:38:35 and miss campbell with moving
1:38:36 forward on identifying some folks from our local medical
1:38:38 community that could come together to help us
1:38:40 work through some of our future challenges and decisions i think
1:38:43 it’s a great idea
1:38:45 um yeah dr mullins are you opposed to i don’t want to step on
1:38:53 the the feet of our team but
1:38:54 no we’ll work on that and fall and confer with both you and mr
1:38:59 seuss and make sure we have the right
1:39:01 representatives um board members did you would you be most
1:39:05 comfortable with recommending each
1:39:09 recommending a person as opposed to how do you want to see i don’t
1:39:13 want to silence anyone’s voice can i
1:39:16 can i speak since it was my motion i would say you know we have
1:39:21 our people right but i think that the main
1:39:23 people that need to be in that room are the heads of the
1:39:26 hospitals um maybe our our local pediatrician
1:39:30 leaders right um i think that we need to have some of the uh
1:39:34 there needs to be the health care for
1:39:36 individuals inside that room to make those educated decisions um
1:39:42 so i i i always know that
1:39:44 we always try to put one person in there that’s okay with me but
1:39:47 i i would really like to have
1:39:49 the heads of the hospitals because when i when i call a lot of
1:39:52 people over at health first in some of
1:39:53 the other areas they they they say hey we can do this right so
1:39:57 they’re not the type that everybody’s
1:39:59 going to fear like you’re going to put the hospitals on their
1:40:01 men they’re just going to shut it down no
1:40:02 that’s not the case actually they’re so i think that educated
1:40:05 background as to their icu beds um and
1:40:09 you know somebody in there as far as the uh anyways i can that’s
1:40:12 where my mind was not that we just
1:40:14 pick one person each and then have them just have it out in a
1:40:17 room you know what i mean that there’s
1:40:18 an educated influx of we’re having deaths in our long-term care
1:40:23 our icu beds are up where you know
1:40:24 what i mean if this is flux we need to discuss this that that’s
1:40:27 where i was going out with it so that’s all
1:40:32 along with our department of health yeah sorry those guys too
1:40:35 so are you guys good with that yeah okay um so any consensus
1:40:45 direction on do we do we want to
1:40:48 um establish some specific metrics to look at and reach out to
1:40:55 the state with a request for
1:40:56 flexibility based on our our infection rate or you guys you want
1:41:00 to
1:41:01 um coast and revisit and see where our numbers go what’s the
1:41:05 desire
1:41:05 i think the state has spoken
1:41:10 anyone else want to weigh in
1:41:22 not forcing anyone no no i i just i get i’m very frustrated you
1:41:28 know what um
1:41:29 we can always try but i agree with miss campbell the state has
1:41:36 made it pretty clear to hillsborough who’s
1:41:39 in a much worse shape than we are um but i am not opposed to i’m
1:41:44 not opposed to it at all
1:41:51 uh i you know for me we have a two-week downward trend right now
1:41:55 so i think that’s the one thing our
1:41:57 health department has made clear i know you’re you know
1:41:59 frustrated with the numbers what day what
1:42:02 days were we closed anybody friday sunday sunday monday tuesday
1:42:06 okay so are we so we’re a little over a week out we were we were
1:42:12 trending down into the four
1:42:13 percent area before before that so with the two-week downward
1:42:17 trend i i i think that we don’t have a
1:42:21 very strong argument to the state my biggest concern has always
1:42:24 been class sizes like if i feel like if we
1:42:26 could get everybody six feet apart then i’m super comfortable
1:42:29 especially with our downward trend but
1:42:31 uh the only way to do that would be to to rotate days or
1:42:34 something of that nature and it’s not in
1:42:36 the in the system right now and with our numbers the lowest or
1:42:39 our rates lowest in the state i mean
1:42:41 the stuff that she was just saying the state is going to look at
1:42:44 us and laugh us out of the out of the
1:42:48 the conversation like like miss mcdougall just said hillsborough’s
1:42:50 in much worse shape than we are so
1:42:52 uh i’m comfortable moving forward okay mr susan not putting you
1:42:58 on the spot but giving you the
1:43:00 opportunity to speak if you’d like not at all i i looked at
1:43:03 hillsborough’s numbers and they’re in the
1:43:05 elevens and nines percents right now and they’re concerned right
1:43:08 but if you take the total number that
1:43:10 they’re testing cross it to us and say okay well we’re testing
1:43:15 1500 they’re testing 3500 right
1:43:18 they’re 1.4 million people we’re 591 000 people and you start
1:43:22 running the data you know i i hate this
1:43:26 metric this percentage because you start to find anomalies where
1:43:29 you know what i mean they may be
1:43:30 just like us it’s just that they’re testing more people and they
1:43:33 have more people in their communities
1:43:34 and that they have higher urban centers which may cause for more
1:43:37 people to be able to be available for
1:43:39 the tests we may have people that are in rural areas that aren’t
1:43:41 coming forward with the tests they’re
1:43:43 just staying home there’s so many anomalies with that where i
1:43:46 find is is that if you would like
1:43:48 metrics i’m sticking to my death rates hospital beds positive to
1:43:52 population type thing and i can give
1:43:54 those to you if i can work out some of these numbers by the end
1:43:57 of the the day but right now i’m trying
1:43:59 to go back to our highest peak and then pull those numbers and
1:44:03 then look at what we have here for the
1:44:05 cause for concern so that’s where i’m at i’m okay with
1:44:07 establishing metrics i’m okay with saying we’re
1:44:10 going to do this because i think we need to defend our people
1:44:12 you know this is what our number one job
1:44:13 you look at your statutes you as a school board member have the
1:44:16 right and have the ability and it
1:44:18 is your number one job to for the health and well-being of our
1:44:20 students and if there’s ever a time then
1:44:22 this is this but i think that we need to put together some solid
1:44:25 stuff you know what i mean and that’s
1:44:26 where this is at but i can’t do it off of that i can’t do it off
1:44:30 so i can give you those metrics at
1:44:37 the end of the day but it’s not going to be anywhere near you
1:44:39 guys saying five eight percent because
1:44:41 i’m just going to say no to that i i apologize but that’s just
1:44:44 where i’m at where i’m at is i want
1:44:46 to i want to look at all of the the data and all the pieces and
1:44:49 say okay we Houston we have a problem
1:44:51 but it’s not going to be based on 100 people showing up and 50
1:44:54 people showing up for a week and
1:44:55 it just drives me nuts okay so i think that moves us on to our
1:45:01 um miss belford if i may before you
1:45:05 move on to the face covering if that’s the direction you’re
1:45:09 moving if i may just request additional
1:45:11 direction from the board on what i’m calling and please feel
1:45:16 free to clarify the community health leader
1:45:19 collaborative um timeline objective of that group and then the
1:45:24 conferring with the board and what’s
1:45:28 the vision of the format is it a work session environment
1:45:32 workshop that type of thing just uh mostly
1:45:34 timeline objective and format just so i clearly communicate to
1:45:38 our community health uh representatives
1:45:41 what we’re coming together
1:45:46 when i saw it when i saw it originally i saw it as the group
1:45:49 that would make the decisions on whether
1:45:51 we are going to close or stay open or move to e-learning or
1:45:53 whatever that was it was kind of that
1:45:55 last barrier of we have all of these metrics that have come in
1:45:58 now there’s a there’s definitely a
1:46:01 problem let’s go discuss in a round table right with the medical
1:46:04 experts inside the community let’s not
1:46:06 let the school district who were not medical experts make those
1:46:09 decisions let’s let’s talk to the people that are
1:46:11 there now if you would like to call them together to have a
1:46:13 discussion over all of these numbers and
1:46:16 figure out these metrics that are there we can do that too
1:46:18 because i think the hospitals would tell
1:46:20 you that they’re they’re very comfortable with where we’re at
1:46:23 right now but i don’t want to speak for
1:46:25 them so that may be part of the conversation and that that may
1:46:29 be that’s up to you guys but i was using
1:46:31 them as a last minute um we need to talk to the health officials
1:46:34 before we do something that’s all
1:46:36 does that help i don’t think that helped him i just want to make
1:46:42 sure that’s the consensus of the
1:46:43 board yeah i was just saying what i was i understand what you’re
1:46:50 saying mr susan but
1:46:51 they’re going to give us the same data that we were already
1:46:53 presented this morning i mean the
1:46:54 department of health can give us our our so then it’s going to
1:46:58 come down to their perspective their
1:47:02 opinions um you know i mean it would be if if it makes the board
1:47:07 feel more comfortable to have it
1:47:09 not just coming from one one data point i’m fine with that and i’ve
1:47:13 already said i’m willing to have
1:47:14 a group i to me i you know then you know we’ve after we’ve been
1:47:18 how long you figure out how long after
1:47:20 we’ve started school do we want them to take a look at how we’re
1:47:24 going um how often ever since
1:47:26 have ever after that i mean it’s a time commitment but i think
1:47:28 our community leaders will be willing to
1:47:30 do that um so it’s monthly often enough or too much to ask of
1:47:36 them you know you know every two weeks
1:47:39 three weeks for them to gather and and take a look i don’t
1:47:42 necessarily do we need are you asking do you
1:47:47 you know do we be do you want us to be part of that conversation
1:47:49 or them to meet together and get
1:47:51 together and then report back to us kind of a consensus of what’s
1:47:56 going on in the community
1:47:58 i would personally suggest that i mean i would like to have an
1:48:01 initial conversation with them and share
1:48:03 with them some of our questions around metrics what’s most
1:48:07 important to look at that sort of thing
1:48:10 um so perhaps an initial workshop with the board and then we can
1:48:16 decide from there i hate to pull them
1:48:18 because i know they are busy people too and obviously dealing
1:48:22 with this pandemic so
1:48:24 i hate to pull them on a regular basis just for the sake of
1:48:27 pulling them
1:48:28 but you know if they would be willing to have some initial
1:48:32 conversation and then be
1:48:34 and available resources we move forward that makes sense to me
1:48:37 okay great that helps thank you and
1:48:41 i would and miss campbell the reason and i agree with you we can
1:48:44 look at the data the issue that i was
1:48:46 having was and the reason that is that those hospitals are in
1:48:50 flux of two things they’re increasing and
1:48:52 decreasing their icu beds and they’re also possibly taking on
1:48:57 people from outside of our county based upon
1:49:00 the flux like stewart health has multiple hospitals outside of
1:49:03 our county so they may be sending people
1:49:05 from other counties to us at that time we don’t know so that
1:49:08 that was the main reason and just when
1:49:10 i was when i was talking um my uncle works for the cleveland
1:49:13 clinic and he’s one of the directors
1:49:16 and i talked to him about this and he said that there’s a lot of
1:49:19 anomalies we can’t see as school
1:49:21 board members that we may need health officials to fill us in on
1:49:23 so that was that was the main reason
1:49:25 but i i do agree with you 100 that these the data that’s out
1:49:28 there we can definitely look at so thank
1:49:30 you to know the why is behind the data that that’s that’s
1:49:33 important too
1:49:34 so just to just to clarify i’ll work with staff to identify
1:49:41 representatives uh reach out to board
1:49:44 members make sure that we’re getting the you know the
1:49:47 appropriate representatives the next format will be
1:49:51 uh work session kind of environment dialogue like we’ve had
1:49:54 today um timeline i would suggest uh you
1:49:59 know we can work on a two-week timeline i don’t know that the
1:50:02 layers of uh officials protect particularly
1:50:06 if we’re talking about you know hospital ceos if they’re going
1:50:10 to be available within the next two
1:50:12 weeks but i would i would guess within the next two to four
1:50:16 weeks um i’ll work to to uh develop that and
1:50:20 get that uh pulled together and the objective will be at the
1:50:24 first work session to talk through questions
1:50:26 what data is looking like at that point and then look for their
1:50:30 professional uh contribution to the
1:50:33 the considerations for the board as we move forward did i
1:50:36 capture that correctly i think so yes thank you
1:50:39 okay uh we are moving on to our emergency rule policy uh we are
1:50:50 voting on this this evening
1:50:51 during the school board meeting but we wanted to have an
1:50:54 opportunity to have some discussion answer
1:50:56 any questions address any concerns with the policy that’s been
1:50:59 drafted
1:50:59 anyone have questions concerns comments of course me yes miss mcdougall
1:51:10 so i um
1:51:12 i certainly i just don’t like highly recommended
1:51:19 i just don’t like that for our k i think it’s k to second
1:51:26 um because what you’re hearing um again from medical officials
1:51:34 is that anybody under two should not
1:51:37 be wearing shouldn’t be required to wear a mask
1:51:43 but anybody over that age unless there’s medical conditions or
1:51:48 if there is some really um
1:51:51 extenuating circumstances that they all should be able to wear a
1:51:57 mask and i’m just
1:51:58 highly recommended just i’m concerned and i don’t know how all
1:52:04 of our teachers feel um but i have had
1:52:07 some of our staff reach up to me and say what about me i’m and
1:52:13 quite frankly you all have been into a
1:52:16 kindergarten through second grade classroom how many of them hugged
1:52:21 you how many have come up and
1:52:23 grabbed your knee how many um are in pods together so social
1:52:28 distancing with those kids
1:52:29 a physical distancing that is going to be a challenge um so that’s
1:52:35 just my two cents about
1:52:37 that wording i i just don’t like it but my thoughts thank you mr
1:52:43 mcdougall anyone else
1:52:45 so we received um a copy of a letter i hope you guys read it
1:52:50 because it was a fantastic letter um
1:52:52 put out by the pediatric infectious disease specialists or
1:52:56 physicians from the orlando area which actually
1:52:59 incorporates it was arnold palmer advent health and i’ll never
1:53:03 say this right but neemers neemors however
1:53:05 you want to say that um put out a letter a joint letter and um
1:53:11 one of the doctors dr alexander
1:53:13 um from neemers actually has he did um i think you sent it to us
1:53:17 and so did the neemers lady sent it
1:53:19 to us also did a training for school nurses last week or the
1:53:23 week before i think um now um for our school
1:53:27 nurses and it was it was he broke down the science of the
1:53:30 disease and the risk factors but i hope that you
1:53:32 guys will read the letter because he addressed um lots of things
1:53:35 the concern about our staff and
1:53:37 talking about our kids doing well but he talked about the the
1:53:40 the uh what’s the word i’m looking
1:53:44 for that the likelihood of students transferring to an adult
1:53:49 right he actually he went in specific
1:53:52 into the the training with the nurses to say that the most
1:53:55 dangerous place on a school campus is going to be the teacher’s
1:53:57 lounge
1:53:58 and i’m not going to be the teacher’s lounge because you’ll have
1:54:00 adults with masks off and so i certainly
1:54:02 i know all our staff are are busy doing school things today but
1:54:05 i hope they’ll listen to that you
1:54:06 need that they need to protect themselves and also their risk of
1:54:08 when they’re outside in the community which
1:54:10 miss belfer just mentioned a while ago um but when they talk
1:54:13 about masks and in the letter um they did
1:54:17 say um as health care providers we appreciate that not all
1:54:21 children are capable of wearing masks
1:54:23 consistently young children will take up their mask and children
1:54:26 with sensory processing disorders such as
1:54:28 autism may find mask intolerable nonetheless these children are
1:54:31 exceptions most children kindergarten age and
1:54:33 older can and should be taught to wear masks successfully but i
1:54:36 think that’s where our language of
1:54:38 strongly recommended is appropriate in my opinion because that’s
1:54:42 something that can be taught
1:54:43 um and so when we say strongly recommended doesn’t mean that our
1:54:47 staff is not coming up with because
1:54:48 i’ve already seen um the videos are in the works of here’s how
1:54:52 we take care of one other we’re going
1:54:54 to be we’re going to be training and teaching but um i think we
1:54:57 you know for those younger students
1:55:00 and we’ve also talked about the whole touching of the face thing
1:55:02 um with our younger students you know
1:55:04 it’s been pretty consistent from even our um epidemiologists
1:55:08 that miss belford had the recorded
1:55:10 conversation with um you know talking about kids 10 and up being
1:55:14 able to do it consistently and properly
1:55:16 um and plus those are the students 10 and up that are the most
1:55:22 like adults when it comes to spread so
1:55:25 i feel like the language as it has been put in there is is
1:55:28 pretty good it’s good i won’t say pretty good it’s good
1:55:35 but i i do i i’m going to share this letter this afternoon on my
1:55:38 uh facebook page because i think
1:55:40 this is a really important resource um for our community to see
1:55:43 as well did you figure out a way
1:55:44 to because i was going to share it yesterday when i got it and i
1:55:46 was like i just don’t have time to
1:55:48 figure out how to convert this to something that facebook will
1:55:50 actually show in multiple pages and
1:55:52 you know what if nothing else i’ll screenshot it and and and uh
1:55:56 just you know put the pictures up
1:55:58 there because it is a pdf file and facebook doesn’t play right
1:56:01 with pdfs so so would you please tag me
1:56:03 in that miss campbell so that i can also share it without doing
1:56:05 the hard work i will do that thank you
1:56:08 ma’am uh anyone else on k2 or any other aspect of the emergency
1:56:15 order i just i have a question on
1:56:18 clarification so the beginning says that if you’re six you need
1:56:22 a mask unless you’re six feet apart
1:56:24 but then we go down and we break it down for employees with
1:56:29 supervisors approval a face covering
1:56:32 shall not be required for a school district employee provided
1:56:34 that the supervisor authorizes the employee
1:56:37 to remove their face covering and they’re six feet away so if
1:56:42 they’re six feet away if they’re in
1:56:44 front of the room and their desks are far enough back and they’re
1:56:47 six feet do they have to have
1:56:48 their supervisors approval to teach instruct without a face
1:56:51 covering or do they need supervisors approval
1:56:54 because the beginning makes it sound like if they’re six feet
1:56:56 away they’re fine they can make decisions
1:56:57 for themselves but this statement makes it sound like their
1:57:00 supervisor has to allow them to do that
1:57:02 i see your point um and i would read that as the direction
1:57:12 coming from the supervisor like obviously
1:57:14 they’re not going to ask the supervisor every time they’re six
1:57:17 six feet away but the direction coming
1:57:19 from the supervisor is consistent with being six feet away it
1:57:23 being okay to take it off but mr gibbs
1:57:26 do you want to weigh in there and the intent was if the policy
1:57:30 is if you cannot maintain the six feet so
1:57:33 the second part with the end there was intended to be uh you
1:57:36 have to make sure you’re maintaining so if
1:57:39 you’ve got the teachers 10 feet away from the students in the
1:57:41 front and they want to take their mask off
1:57:44 they can do that but if they’re moving around the whole time and
1:57:47 they’re in and out of the six foot
1:57:49 window they need to keep their mask on so the hand should be you’re
1:57:54 maintaining at least six feet of
1:57:55 distance not in and out but it says that in the very first
1:57:58 paragraph of the whole document so then why
1:58:00 have this that they need supervisors approval to have it off if
1:58:03 they’re if they’re still sick it says
1:58:05 they have to they need supervisor approval and they must
1:58:08 maintain six feet away it kind of conflicts
1:58:11 with what’s in the beginning who put this together yeah i didn’t
1:58:14 it’s mine
1:58:14 so are you saying that if it’s an employee who has gotten super
1:58:20 provisor’s approval to not wear a mask
1:58:23 for because they have a doctor’s note for some that would just
1:58:27 be a general exception okay under there
1:58:29 for that’s the medical certification up there this one is
1:58:32 completely separate so that okay i’m gonna
1:58:35 see i was if you have an exception you can do your job and you
1:58:38 would not have to but the people you’re
1:58:40 working with should have a mask on right so it’s still not clear
1:58:45 to me are we going to change it to
1:58:48 make it clear or leave it if you want confusing make a
1:58:50 recommendation for clarification that’s fine
1:58:53 i guess i don’t know what the will of the board is to change it
1:58:57 do we want to make teachers have
1:58:59 general supervisor approval to take their face masks off when
1:59:03 they’re over six feet apart
1:59:05 but why would we do that because we’ve already said as a board
1:59:08 if we agree to this that on number
1:59:10 the top that if you’re over six feet apart you don’t have to
1:59:12 have a mask
1:59:18 i see what you’re saying i will weigh in and suggest that um
1:59:25 after i read an email that
1:59:30 we received this morning and i don’t know if all of us received
1:59:33 it but um
1:59:34 i am hesitant to give supervisor approval to move away from the
1:59:42 policy i feel like the policy should give
1:59:46 the exception but um i i feel like we might be getting ourselves
1:59:55 into trouble with some
1:59:58 we have supervisors at all levels of the organization and if the
2:00:02 supervisors don’t agree
2:00:03 with our expectation or requirement of a mask being worn they
2:00:07 may be tempted to tell their employees that
2:00:10 they do not have to wear a mask and i don’t think that’s the
2:00:13 intent of our efforts here
2:00:14 or on the other end telling them they have to when they’re six
2:00:18 feet apart
2:00:19 i don’t and honestly the one the paragraph right before it
2:00:24 students with supervisors approval
2:00:26 it’s kind of the same thing it’s saying the supervisor has to
2:00:30 approve and they still have to
2:00:31 stay six feet apart so this these two paragraphs give whoever
2:00:35 the supervisor is
2:00:38 the authority to either make them wear it when they’re over six
2:00:43 feet apart or tell them they can
2:00:45 take it off when they’re over six feet apart which we’ve already
2:00:48 told them in the beginning
2:00:49 of the document it doesn’t make sense to me mr susan so part of
2:00:54 the conversation about having
2:00:56 supervisor approval came when i was making the recommendation
2:00:59 from the department of defense
2:01:00 and they don’t just have it per the location but they also have
2:01:04 it go up the chain so if there’s
2:01:06 somebody that’s out there that has the exception to the rule it
2:01:09 doesn’t just stop at the principal’s
2:01:11 level it goes to what they would consider their director or
2:01:14 deputy superintendent also because
2:01:16 i’ll just flat out say it i mean you were being nice about it
2:01:18 but the bottom line is is that we have
2:01:20 some schools that aren’t wearing masks and that is unacceptable
2:01:23 and i’ll just tell you like if if any
2:01:26 of them are listening right now cut it out put the damn things
2:01:29 on because we’re not making this policy
2:01:32 because we just feel like it we’re making this policy so that we
2:01:34 can stay in school and so that
2:01:36 we don’t impact our health insurance i mean the a thousand other
2:01:39 things from gender gaps to
2:01:41 everything else but but the bottom line is is this we have very
2:01:44 good indication that somebody that
2:01:45 goes into ico costs our plan close inwards of a hundred thousand
2:01:50 dollars so these people who are
2:01:52 out there saying well i may not need it i may need it and then
2:01:54 they end up and they end up sick and
2:01:56 then we end up paying for it on our health insurance shame on
2:01:59 you for not putting the masks on your
2:02:02 teacher you set an example you do it right so with that said i
2:02:05 agree with you once we start leaving
2:02:07 it up to some of these areas that may not be putting them on it
2:02:11 it leaves it alone i i just i’m getting
2:02:13 really fired up over what i saw also but when our the ones that
2:02:18 we saw that were this summer were
2:02:21 operating under the standards that we had at the time and this
2:02:24 policy hadn’t been adopted and i i
2:02:26 was in a school i don’t know if any of you went out for opening
2:02:29 day sorry i just call opening day you
2:02:30 know when teachers were gathered yesterday i was there you know
2:02:33 everybody was sitting at the table even
2:02:35 spreading out you know they kept them you know the speakers when
2:02:38 they would go up to the front and
2:02:39 they were far away from everybody took them off just for that
2:02:42 you know so they because they were
2:02:43 distancing and they were talking to the microphone or whatever
2:02:46 but everybody pretty much had them on and
2:02:47 and they were all different kinds of varieties so i don’t
2:02:50 because i don’t want to go out there people
2:02:52 thinking oh our teachers are already back yesterday and today
2:02:55 and and everybody’s breaking the rule
2:02:56 already um i feel like the student one at least was supposed to
2:03:01 be because we talk about the mask
2:03:03 break and i asked could we have a time when students can say hey
2:03:07 can i step out in the hall or whatever
2:03:09 and you know take a couple breaths without this on my face that
2:03:14 that is kind of what that is i feel like
2:03:18 this is for the students um the mask break now the languages we
2:03:23 have it right now even before the exception
2:03:26 section says you know when when social distancing six feet
2:03:30 cannot be adhered to now i take that as
2:03:35 if we have a class because of the numbers in e-learning spaces
2:03:38 this would be in secondary more than
2:03:40 elementary that if we have students let’s say we’ve only got
2:03:43 eight kids in the classroom they
2:03:45 can spread out six feet apart that they could take their mask
2:03:48 off that’s how i take it um as long as
2:03:52 one while they’re sitting in their desk and they’re not roaming
2:03:55 around you know while they’re sitting at
2:03:56 their desk and they are away from everybody else that they can
2:03:58 take this off that if this right here
2:04:01 and the exception says students with supervisors approval says
2:04:04 that they have to ask permission
2:04:05 from their teacher before they can do that
2:04:07 while they’re sitting at their desk you know then i think we
2:04:12 need to be real clear about that
2:04:14 yeah it’s that we have to get rid of either the beginning that
2:04:18 says if you’re six feet apart you
2:04:19 don’t have to wear it or we have to get rid of those two
2:04:21 paragraphs that say you have to ask permission
2:04:23 and stay six feet apart they just they conflict each other
2:04:31 that’s mr gibbs how about if we because to mr gibbs’s point
2:04:36 about people moving around the
2:04:38 classroom so if i currently i’m at six feet i can take my mask
2:04:42 off indoors but if i’m going to walk over
2:04:45 and talk to pam now i’m i’m no longer six feet away as i’m
2:04:49 passing cheryl as i’m you know what i mean
2:04:51 so what if we changed in the opening paragraph when it says when
2:04:57 social distancing cannot be adhered to
2:05:01 well no that would be kind of redundant cannot be maintained as
2:05:06 opposed to adhered to does that
2:05:09 clear it up are you in the beginning exception section no
2:05:12 required face coverings
2:05:14 first sentence at all times when social distancing distancing
2:05:21 cannot be adhered to or maintained or
2:05:27 is that just making it muddier i mean i think it’s the
2:05:29 circumstance you just wrecked it would be when
2:05:32 it it can’t be adhered to if i’m walking into the pencil sharpener
2:05:36 if i’m allowed to sharpen my pencil
2:05:38 this year if i’m walking to the pencil sharpener i’m going to
2:05:40 pass a few people and maybe the teacher
2:05:42 i need to have a mask on because then all of a sudden i’m going
2:05:45 to be not following that if i’m
2:05:48 sitting right next to the pencil sharpener and all i have to do
2:05:50 is stand up and do it i’m not getting
2:05:52 closer to anyone then you know we should be good i think it’s i
2:05:57 think it’s specific i guess i i hear
2:06:01 miss deskovich’s concern and i do have the same concern if we
2:06:04 have a student who really needs to
2:06:05 take a break and they’re following the guidelines and they’re
2:06:08 more than six feet apart from everyone
2:06:09 around them but we have that a specific teacher who says who is
2:06:13 worried who says not in my class when
2:06:16 you’re in here you got to keep them on the whole entire time
2:06:18 even if you’re six more than six feet
2:06:19 apart um i feel like that’s clarified in the top though in
2:06:27 section one okay
2:06:30 required to wear a face covering at all times when social
2:06:35 distancing cannot be adhered to while on
2:06:37 school district property yeah okay right they’re they’re
2:06:42 concerned with the uh supervisor approval
2:06:45 part of it so i mean we can take that out if you want to take it
2:06:48 out
2:06:48 and just leave it as if you can’t maintain or you can’t adhere
2:06:56 to the six foot
2:06:57 i’m just trying is there another circumstance where a student
2:07:02 would need to
2:07:04 every other time when they would need to be they would need to
2:07:06 ask because it says in the student one
2:07:08 authorizes them it’s listed like if they are i think it’s like
2:07:13 in their medical if they’re being
2:07:15 medical care like they’re having to you know someone when our
2:07:21 nurses have to
2:07:22 administer certain medications or whatever those kinds of things
2:07:26 those are those are covered so and
2:07:27 the accident circumstances covers that as well um i understand
2:07:33 maybe a supervisor having to give
2:07:36 permission if you’re within six feet for some strange reason
2:07:39 giving medicine or something of that nature
2:07:42 but i don’t understand a supervisor having to give permission if
2:07:45 you’re more than six feet
2:07:50 it could be dependent on uh what activities being done as well
2:07:53 maybe you’re starting out in an activity
2:07:57 where everybody’s six feet but there’s going to be a lot of
2:08:00 movement in the class so the super
2:08:02 your teacher says hey everybody needs to keep their mask on
2:08:04 because people are just going to be wandering
2:08:06 around a lot moving from station to station so they want
2:08:10 everybody to have a mask on it’s really up to you guys
2:08:12 well we have to cover all our classrooms too and we do have band
2:08:16 and i think our courses are all going
2:08:17 to be singing outside but we do have bands um you know people
2:08:21 have been concerned about if you’re
2:08:23 when your section’s not playing keep your mask on i mean uh i do
2:08:27 want to give our teachers um
2:08:30 some leeway to to to have those instructions when it’s
2:08:33 appropriate just for my own clarification
2:08:37 mr gibbs is the correct me if i’m the intent of the students
2:08:42 with supervisors approval i understand
2:08:46 that to read that it maintains the determination when six feet
2:08:50 can be maintained or adhered to
2:08:52 in the teacher or supervisor’s determination not in the student’s
2:08:58 determination so that it
2:09:00 so that we don’t have individual students in a class all saying
2:09:05 no this is six feet no that
2:09:07 isn’t six feet it’s it essentially is requiring masks until
2:09:11 which time the supervisor says we’re
2:09:14 in an environment we’re going to be able to maintain six feet
2:09:16 you can remove your masks versus
2:09:18 right then having to respond to 15 18 25 students all making
2:09:24 their own assessment when six feet is
2:09:26 or is not adhered to is it did i yeah for students that would be
2:09:29 my intent would be to have the teacher
2:09:31 verify because i could easily see a situation where chairs
2:09:34 depending on the class size the chairs
2:09:37 aren’t six feet apart and students have three other classes that
2:09:41 they think that are six feet apart and
2:09:43 they’re able to take their mask off but this one class has 20
2:09:47 kids in it and they’re two feet apart
2:09:49 and they can’t take their mask off so they’re just going to have
2:09:52 to come in and say you guys can’t take
2:09:53 your mask off on this one so the intent of that paragraph is
2:09:56 just to say the supervisor gets to
2:09:59 announce when you’re six feet apart basically it gives the
2:10:02 authority and autonomy to the teacher versus
2:10:05 the student so the teacher is managing the environment they’re
2:10:08 not having to address several different
2:10:11 individual students which could become a management challenge
2:10:14 for the students for the the teacher one
2:10:18 i did not intend for the teacher to have to call their principal
2:10:21 up and say can i take my mask off
2:10:23 yeah that that would mean the principal would have to tell the
2:10:29 teacher
2:10:30 when when they’re six feet up that just doesn’t make that right
2:10:33 yeah i did not intend for that
2:10:35 so you have a recommended edit to achieve what they have no no i
2:10:41 don’t i mean i would take them out just
2:10:45 i think it’s redundant and confusing but i mean i’m not whatever
2:10:48 you guys want i just wanted to point
2:10:50 out that there was some confusion there and i think when people
2:10:52 read it it’s going to be confusing
2:10:53 anyone else wants to weigh in i’d rather leave it in all right
2:11:01 matt in yep miss campbell um if
2:11:06 if i wouldn’t necessarily want because of you know the
2:11:10 discussion we just had wouldn’t want to
2:11:12 remove the students one but the employees one perhaps i just
2:11:16 again same reason for that i think
2:11:18 it’s redundant for the employee one you’re saying the employee
2:11:31 one yeah
2:11:32 so i would i guess i would err on the side of caution and have
2:11:42 redundancy rather than
2:11:43 um
2:11:48 so just so our employees know that might watch this later does
2:11:55 that mean
2:11:56 they have to get a general permission we understand it’s not an
2:11:59 individual hi today i’d like to take
2:12:01 this off for 12 minutes but general permission from there if
2:12:05 they’re over six feet because that’s what
2:12:07 this says they need to go to their principal probably today and
2:12:10 say this year when i’m six feet away
2:12:13 i need permission from you principal to take my mask off to
2:12:16 teach is that what we’re asking our employees
2:12:18 just so they know and understand yeah no i would suggest that
2:12:21 they are given direction from their
2:12:23 supervisor as to the expectations while in the classroom like i
2:12:26 would hope that all of our
2:12:28 principals are having these conversations with their staff about
2:12:31 this is when you need to have your
2:12:33 mask on and this is when you can have your mask off so does this
2:12:36 give authority to our administrators to
2:12:38 say i’m not comfortable with you taking your mask off even when
2:12:42 you are six feet apart
2:12:43 in the classroom because that’s also what i’m getting from this
2:12:47 we have an administrator that
2:12:49 wants to be a little bit more strict than what we’ve said this
2:12:52 kind of gives them the the authority to say
2:12:54 nope you all you can’t even take it off when you’re six feet
2:12:57 away
2:12:58 am i not not understanding that correctly all right so i’ll
2:13:03 suggest that we take out the employees with
2:13:06 supervisors approval and then does that work for everyone and we’ll
2:13:10 keep the students so what you’re
2:13:13 saying that the teacher can make maintain that the can make the
2:13:17 decision on whether they are six feet
2:13:19 apart and not have to go to the supervisor so if a supervisor
2:13:23 walks in and sees that the teacher is not
2:13:25 six feet apart kids are with their masks off what’s the scenario
2:13:28 it’s that’s under the consequences
2:13:30 down in section six it looks like yeah employees like the
2:13:34 bargaining agreement discipline as stated
2:13:37 i did not intend on teachers calling the principal saying hey is
2:13:41 it okay if i take my mask off right
2:13:43 yeah it’s just once we start opening up doors things start to
2:13:48 happen yeah the expectation in the policy
2:13:50 overall is they have to have it on when they’re not with when
2:13:53 they’re outside inside of six feet
2:13:55 well and i would suggest that we all probably need to be
2:13:58 prepared to revisit and make adjustments
2:14:00 as we go on this because i will clarify this is just for the 90
2:14:05 days emergency policies are only good
2:14:07 for 90 days if the board approves it tonight i will have to
2:14:11 start rule making and turn this into a generic
2:14:14 emergency procedure policy for infectious conditions that would
2:14:21 apply in a general scope outside of covid
2:14:24 so i had a question on that as far as the policies that you’re
2:14:28 developing we don’t have anything in
2:14:30 place right now that you’re adding to we’re just creating a
2:14:32 brand new policy yeah it would be a brand new
2:14:34 policy um and and that’s uh one of the amendments i was going to
2:14:37 say is uh where it says at the top future
2:14:39 policies take that out we found uh in 84 20 it’s an emergency
2:14:45 management emergency preparedness and
2:14:47 emergency response response agencies policy under operations
2:14:51 that we would just put it under there
2:14:53 probably as an 84 20.02 okay that would apply across the
2:14:57 district i know you’re just getting started but
2:15:00 have we already looked at neola or and you do you already have
2:15:03 something yeah neola does not have
2:15:06 like one that would require face masks so okay that would be we’re
2:15:11 gonna have to just well you did a
2:15:13 pretty good job coming up with this um from scratch it was that
2:15:17 yeah pulled from several sources around
2:15:19 the state and the fsbaa has been kicking out what everybody’s
2:15:23 doing so i just kind of pulled from here and
2:15:25 there so i do have one did anyone else have comments in any
2:15:30 other section um i do have one under section
2:15:33 two mr gibbs the very first line while maintaining social
2:15:37 distancing six feet minimum as much as feasible
2:15:39 okay a face covering is not required that as much as feasible
2:15:44 makes me cringe a little bit
2:15:47 does anyone else
2:15:51 have concern there yeah if it relates to the exceptions like so
2:15:58 if you have a medical exception and you don’t
2:16:01 wear your mask but your chair is four feet from your neighbor
2:16:04 there’s nothing you can really do about
2:16:06 it i mean we can’t really punish that student because the
2:16:09 classroom set up and the number of students in
2:16:12 the class don’t allow for six feet and i think it just goes to
2:16:17 show that our pre-k and primary it’s just
2:16:20 talking about our pre-k and primary students who may not wear a
2:16:23 mask under our exceptions they’re gonna we’re still gonna try to
2:16:27 socially distance them as far as possible
2:16:29 again i’m happy to change it however you guys want and going to
2:16:34 the pre-k i i worded it that way just
2:16:36 because i didn’t necessarily feel like the board was like let’s
2:16:40 move all these pre-k through second graders
2:16:43 to e-learning simply because they are the way they are and they
2:16:47 refuse to wear their masks i see your point there absolutely
2:16:51 um and then there was one other one
2:16:54 face shields
2:17:02 the second uh sentence there faculty are encouraged to use a
2:17:11 face shield in lieu of a mask when the
2:17:13 instruction requires the students to be able to see a teacher’s
2:17:16 face
2:17:20 so i think what we’re saying is if you absolutely can’t wear a
2:17:24 mask we want you to at least wear a face shield
2:17:27 can i jump in here i think also we need to pay attention to our
2:17:31 um our hard of hearing students
2:17:33 hang on miss mcdougall can you scoot up a little bit oh i’m
2:17:37 sorry now i should turn it on um so what i
2:17:41 think part of this is relates to is our hard of hearing students
2:17:45 who read lips who depend on i need
2:17:47 to be able to see my teacher’s lips so i think that’s important
2:17:50 that we have that in there and i i
2:17:52 think there will be times when a teacher will just have the the
2:17:56 um face shield because of students in
2:17:59 her class in his or her classroom that’s my thought on that i
2:18:02 agree my only concern is that we know that
2:18:06 face shield i mean ideally face shields are meant to be worn
2:18:09 with a mask for best protection for all
2:18:12 right so i almost like the first time i read this i was like
2:18:18 what do you mean we encourage faculty
2:18:19 to use a face shield instead of a mask like i don’t can we
2:18:23 change it to allowed instead of that’s
2:18:26 what i’m thinking or you know in in when instruction requires
2:18:29 the students to be able to see a teacher’s
2:18:31 face clear masks or face shields may be utilized as opposed to
2:18:37 them thinking that we are encouraging
2:18:40 them to wear and i had i spoke with dr mullins i i have serious
2:18:44 concerns about people understanding
2:18:47 masks and how to wear masks and how to properly care for masks
2:18:51 and how to determine what mask is best for
2:18:55 you and so i had asked that we kind of put together some
2:18:57 educational materials as well to share with folks
2:19:00 because what i don’t want is our teachers thinking that face
2:19:03 shields are as effective as masks and
2:19:05 then making decisions based on that that’s putting them at risk
2:19:09 um and quite frankly i have the same
2:19:12 concern with the n95 masks the n95 or the kn95 are going to keep
2:19:16 stuff out which is safer for our
2:19:18 teachers but it’s not keeping stuff in which you know puts
2:19:22 anyone not wearing the kn95 at risk so
2:19:25 there’s some just some intricacies there but i would you guys be
2:19:28 good if we just
2:19:29 amended that language a little bit to say that they may wear a
2:19:33 clear mask or a face shield in those
2:19:35 situations that works for me yeah as opposed to they should yeah
2:19:40 i was just looking in the section
2:19:41 above on the types of face covering we don’t include face
2:19:45 shields in section three do we
2:19:50 so those are the um i’m not saying them so um that would be that
2:19:59 this is the the time the one you
2:20:01 know the opportunity that the search circuit so even those
2:20:04 teachers are using a face shield the rest of
2:20:05 the time they’ll need to have a mask when they’re not doing that
2:20:09 if they’re walking it’s you know a line
2:20:11 to class or whatever um to class to lunch or you know wherever
2:20:15 they’re going this more i’m gonna clarify
2:20:21 maybe put her on the spot i believe we are also obtaining face
2:20:26 coverings with a plastic
2:20:31 so an individual can wear a mask with a cut out of you know some
2:20:34 kind of a plastic covering so you can
2:20:36 wear a mask and still see an individual’s mouth so to see you
2:20:40 know the pronunciation and that sort of
2:20:43 thing am i correct that is correct so i don’t know if mr gibbs
2:20:47 had that that’s a recent development
2:20:50 so i don’t know if mr gibbs had that when developing the
2:20:53 language we can certainly make the appropriate
2:20:54 modification yeah well it’s still considered a face mask it’s
2:20:58 just a clear face mask any commercially
2:21:01 approved face mask would be approval here so i mean if you guys
2:21:06 want to i don’t know if you want to
2:21:07 change anything on that if you want to say face shields aren’t
2:21:10 acceptable in lieu of that then that’s fine i can
2:21:12 take it out but i i don’t have a problem with language as it is
2:21:15 and changing the word encouraged to
2:21:18 aloud so that we just you know right i’m really the teachers
2:21:21 understand they’re allowed to do that
2:21:22 when it’s like miss mcdougall miss mcdougall shared you know it
2:21:25 could be hard of hearing or it could be
2:21:27 like our our young learners who are needing to see you know i
2:21:31 think you wanted to weigh in i did um the
2:21:35 clear plastic masks have not been ordered yet
2:21:42 but procurement’s working on obtaining uh a quote for that i
2:21:47 just wanted to clarify
2:21:48 that i was talking to don richard and so that for gen for i know
2:21:55 possibly for the esc teachers they have
2:21:58 but for k2 teachers where we were looking at that those have not
2:22:04 been ordered the face shield was ordered for
2:22:08 all teachers so when they are doing small group and you need to
2:22:13 see the mat the mouth that was the purpose
2:22:17 or when the teacher is standing at the board and teaching six
2:22:21 feet away that face shield was for that
2:22:24 purpose so that you can see and hear more clearly than the muffled
2:22:29 you get with a mask
2:22:33 makes perfect sense thank you so um is any board member opposed
2:22:37 to changing that to faculty are
2:22:39 allowed to use a face shield in lieu of a mask when the
2:22:41 instruction requires the students to be able to
2:22:43 see a teacher’s face oh that’s fine matt you’re good with that tina
2:22:47 you’re good with that okay mr gibbs
2:22:51 you’re good without change yep so just so i’m clear what do you
2:22:54 want to state um so i can get this
2:22:56 language it’s going to have to be an amendment tonight so i want
2:22:59 to make sure whoever’s making the motion
2:23:01 knows exactly what to state it’ll be an amended motion because
2:23:06 this is already posted so someone’s
2:23:08 going to have to amend with all of these this evening yeah well
2:23:12 tonight yeah i will it’ll be ready but
2:23:15 i just need to know what to put in the motion so whoever’s
2:23:18 making it knows exactly how to state it got
2:23:20 it um so second sentence faculty are allowed as opposed to
2:23:25 encouraged allowed okay we all good with
2:23:29 that yeah any other questions comments concerns on the emergency
2:23:34 order and i do i do have one that
2:23:36 was raised um i did have an iep 504 section when i was running
2:23:39 it through cabinet i think it got removed
2:23:42 dr sullivan’s not in here i think she was the one who
2:23:45 recommended chris do we need to put that back in
2:23:48 and we do we do there are a lot of uh with the medical
2:23:51 certification i i appreciate that a lot of
2:23:53 parents are going to want to go out and make uh appointments
2:23:56 with their providers but we already
2:23:58 have a lot of documented medical concerns in 504 and ieps that
2:24:02 would serve just as well for uh for our
2:24:04 school’s notification that a child is going to have a problem
2:24:07 with a with a face mask so but when the
2:24:10 part that got cut read iep or 504 plan in the exception section
2:24:14 it was defined as a face covering
2:24:16 shall not be required for any student whose iep or 504 plan
2:24:21 specifically exempts the student from
2:24:23 wearing a covering i can stick that back in if the board’s good
2:24:26 with that language
2:24:28 i would actually like it to read documents a medical concern and
2:24:34 bring it back up to the medical
2:24:36 certification language what you just read would require iep
2:24:40 meetings whereas we already have medical
2:24:43 concerns documented in 504 plans and ieps sensory issues that
2:24:46 would go right back up into what the
2:24:48 medical certification uh states all right just shoot me the
2:24:52 language that you want if the board’s good
2:24:54 with amending it i’ll get that in the script tonight i i have a
2:24:59 question so if a child has an iep that says
2:25:02 they have severe anxiety and sensory issues does that mean they
2:25:04 don’t have to go back to the doctor and get
2:25:06 a note that specifically says they don’t wear a mask that means
2:25:08 somebody within our district will
2:25:10 determine that this is an ex you know an acceptable exemption
2:25:13 that would be correct thank you who is
2:25:16 going to make that decision that would be the staffing
2:25:18 specialist would have the iep team review the iep
2:25:21 and say yes this is what it means um so that we wouldn’t have to
2:25:24 actually have a whole iep meeting we
2:25:26 would just review the iep how many ieps do we have in our
2:25:29 district in 504s roughly that’s a number
2:25:32 i try not to answer number questions uh a lot um but if they’re
2:25:40 going to be not a lot that specifically
2:25:43 address face masks and so as we’re asked to review for a parent
2:25:47 who who either can’t make an appointment
2:25:50 with a physician or a physician who is not going to make that
2:25:53 statement that a child isn’t going to be
2:25:55 uh have to wear a face mask we will pull that iep in the 504 and
2:25:58 we’ll review it what i’m trying to ask
2:26:01 is any child that has sensory issues with an iep all those
2:26:06 parents are may potentially come forward
2:26:09 right now and say we want your staff to review and give us an
2:26:12 exception what is that going to do to
2:26:15 our staff that works on ieps that needs to approve that
2:26:18 exception well each school has a support
2:26:21 specialist so that would be the first level of pulling the iep
2:26:23 and and seeing if it says anything
2:26:25 about a sensory issue and again a lot of our support specialists
2:26:28 very very much know our students and
2:26:30 their ieps and and what’s in them um so do they have the
2:26:34 authority right there to say oh yeah their iep says
2:26:38 this and i would think that authority lies with the
2:26:40 administrator in that building but the staffing
2:26:42 specialist would make that recommendation to the principal okay
2:26:45 thank you yeah and that’s what
2:26:49 i’ve had a couple of people reach out to me with questions about
2:26:51 our students with ieps and i’ve i’ve
2:26:53 directed them to reach out to the principal at their school
2:26:55 because they have the information there and
2:26:58 the staff there to get the information to make the determination
2:27:00 so um i’m sure our local medical
2:27:04 providers appreciate that exception miss moore thank you all
2:27:08 right anything else on the emergency order
2:27:11 mr gibbs anything else on the emergency order that we need to
2:27:13 consider are you comfortable with direction
2:27:15 moving forward yep i’ll work with pam on getting that so it’s
2:27:18 understandable what needs to be amended
2:27:21 tonight and uh you’ll provide it to anyone who wants to make a
2:27:26 motion on the item i’ll shoot it to
2:27:28 everybody and you guys can decide who wants to move to amend
2:27:31 okay perfect thank you mr gibbs uh there
2:27:34 being no further business this meeting is now adjourned
2:27:49 you