ORLANDO, Fla. — As many Central Florida school kids prepare to head back to brick and mortar classrooms, some top pediatricians are still urging Gov. Ron DeSantis to nix in-person learning.
What You Need To Know
- Some Central Florida pediatricians urging for remote-only start to school year
- Gov. DeSantis has said he feels it is detrimental for kids to not go back in person
- Get more back-to-school coverage in Central Florida
Last week, the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (FCAAP) put out safety recommendations for reopening schools, after first writing a letter to the governor urging him to reconsider in-person learning.
FCAAP wants to delay in-person learning until communities have a percent positive rate of less than five-percent (averaged over 14 days), based on guidelines from the World Health Organization.
“If we get it down lower and we open schools, we’ll have so fewer cases that we’ll be able to do contact tracing much more effectively than if we open too soon,” explained Dr. Michael Muszynski, an FCAAP member who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases.
Otherwise, he likens reopening schools to the whack-a-mole game: “You’ll be chasing it all over the place, and I don’t know if the health department has the personnel to really handle how much that might be. I would worry about that.”
But a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Education told News 13, “local context matters way more than one statistic,” when News 13 pointed to FCAAP’s percent positive recommendation.
“It’s also important to remember that a low positivity rate could actually be a sign that you’re doing a poor job of testing the people that actually need to be tested,” said Taryn Fenske. “A positivity rate could easily be driven by one isolated segment of the community, not actually resembling the entire community.”
Both sides have said they have students’ safety at the forefront and some of their reopening recommendations coincide, including staggering school start and end times to limit crowds and grouping the same students together throughout the day to help limit exposure.
“It will not make it safe but it will make it as safe as possible," said Muszynski. "We can’t be safe from this infection no matter where we’re at. We can just be as safe as possible.”
Dr. Musynski recommends parents sending their kids to school get them tested regularly and screen them before leaving the house.
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