MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – As Broward County continues to move forward with beginning in-person learning for district students, Local 10 has confirmed several positive COVID-19 cases in both public and charter schools.
A teacher at Park Trails Elementary in Parkland and a student at Chapel Trail Elementary in Pembroke Pines have tested positive; both are district run schools.
Positive COVID-19 tests have also been confirmed at Somerset Academy in Pembroke Pines and at Pembroke Pines Charter Elementary West Campus.
This comes as the second wave of students head back to in person learning in Broward, all while a discussion is being had over rules in regard to wearing masks.
The school board weighed in on the proposed policy.
“They must wear a face covering including the weight room and physical education classes,” said Broward School Board General Counsel Barbara J. Myrick.
There are some who do not like the idea that athletes may sometimes not have to wear them.
“It’s spreading through football teams and to think that it’s not going to spread through ours, and get to the school that way, we are deceiving ourselves,” said Broward Schools Board Member Laurie Rich Levinson.
Added Broward Schools Board Member Donna Korn: “You choose to be on a wrestling team and your parents are choosing to allow that as well, then we would allow them to play without the mask.”
Meanwhile in Miami-Dade County, students of MAST Academy in Virginia Key returned to physical classrooms Tuesday after the campus was temporarily closed for a deep cleaning.
The school district made the decision to temporarily shut down the campus after two students tested positive for COVID-19.
“It’s been a bit of a mess, but that’s a general Miami-Dade County thing,” one sophomore, Enzo, said.
Enzo said he reluctantly headed back to school Tuesday.
“I hope things get better,” he said. “I hope we can stay open personally, but if we have to go back I completely understand and I think that would be the best decision for public health, and I think most of the student body agrees with me.”
Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the school was reopening Tuesday after what he called “a deep sanitization.”
A MAST Academy seventh grader named Olivia said she’s baffled by how quickly the closure and reopening decisions are being made at her school.
“I feel like they opened too fast the school, and closed too fast and then they opened again too fast, and so it’s kind of weird,” she said.
MAST is one of several Miami-Dade County public schools to have new COVID-19 cases after reopening in early October.
A robocall went out Monday night to parents of students at G. Holmes Braddock Senior High School in southwest Miami-Dade, alerting them that the state Department of Health confirmed that a student had tested positive for COVID-19.
The superintendent said as of Monday afternoon, 10 students and one employee in the school district tested positive for the virus since physical schooling resumed.