Parents need more detailed coronavirus information from schools | Editorial

If anyone wants to know about COVID-19 cases in Lake County schools they can go to the district website and feast their eyes.

As of Sept. 3, one student had tested positive at Leesburg High. Seven students at Cypress Ridge Elementary had been quarantined. No staff members at East Ridge High had tested positive.

That probably means nothing to you, but it means a lot to parents who sent their children back those schools.

Families in neighboring counties should be so fortunate.

Orange County Public Schools lists schools with positive cases on the district’s Facebook page. It does not list how many cases there are at those schools or if they were traced to students or staff.

That’s better than Seminole County, which doesn’t post any reports on COVID-19 cases. The district will provide that information if you call and ask.

That’s not good enough. Lesson No. 1 in this pandemic is the more information you can get out there, the better.

That applies to presidents, governors, office managers and everyone in a position of authority. But it’s uniquely imperative for school officials.

Parents who’ve opted to send their kids back to school are living on a nervous edge. They shouldn’t have to play guessing games about coronavirus trends in the neighborhood schools.

Orange County cites privacy concerns for withholding information, but that reasoning doesn’t add up.

The Florida Department of Education says school districts can report coronavirus cases as they choose. That information comes from the Florida Department of Health.

Dr. Raul Pino, the state’s health officer for the county, was releasing the number of students and staff who’d been infected, and whether those infections were transmitted in classrooms.

Then, last week, Pino said he couldn’t release that information due to confidentiality rules. But those rules govern all Florida counties and many of them are posting detailed information on COVID-19 infections in schools.

A public records expert at the University of Florida said disclosing the number of cases at individual schools would not violate privacy laws. Schools routinely release such information on measles and head lice cases.

Why should COVID-19 be any different?

“The public needs to know the same data that decision-makers are basing their policies on,” said Frank LoMonte, director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, “otherwise government just runs on the honor system.”

It’s unclear why Pino stopped releasing the data. A DOH spokesperson said the information it provides to school districts is confidential, but the department does not regulate how that information is released.

It’s also unclear whether OCPS would even use the data Pino says he can no longer provide. The school district wasn’t posting detailed information on its Facebook page before Pino’s announcement last week.

The latest update noted there were 20 new cases at 13 schools since last Friday, and 188 quarantine letters were sent to students at three schools. There was no school-by-school breakdown, no information whether the positive cases were students or staff and no running total of cases.

Compare that to Hillsborough County, which has a dashboard going back to July 31 listing cases at every school and whether they were students or staff. That is not trivial information to countless parents.

They anguished whether to send their children back to school, weighing the benefits of face-to-face learning against the dangers of COVID-19. When it comes to trends and potential outbreaks, parents deserve every scrap of information they can get.

DOH guidelines say schools should “communicate clearly and frequently with parents and guardians about keeping students home if they are symptomatic, have tested positive for COVID-19, or have had close contact to a case of COVID-19.”

Clear communication means providing pertinent information before students are symptomatic. It doesn’t mean making them call for updates, as parents must do in Seminole County.

It doesn’t mean parents in Orange County must guess whether one or three or 11 students or staff at their child’s school have tested positive.

Orange County plans to is to continue posting bi-weekly updates on its Facebook page and eventually on its website. Will that information include the number of cases per school, and whether they are students or staff?

“We have not provided the number of cases at each site,” a spokesperson said. “I do not have that data available.”

Is that because the DOH won’t provide it? Is it because OCPS doesn’t want it?

The answers are lost in a bureaucratic jungle. Whatever they are, somebody needs to step up and remember pandemic Lesson No. 1.

Parents are worried enough these days. Schools shouldn’t needlessly add to that anxiety.

Editorials are the opinion of the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board and are written by one of its members or a designee. The editorial board consists of Opinion Editor Mike Lafferty, Jennifer A. Marcial Ocasio, Jay Reddick, David Whitley and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Send emails to insight@orlandosentinel.com

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