Photo by Max Fischer from Pexels
By Jill Fox
With over 260,000 students returning to Broward County Public schools Monday, the school board revised health and safety protocols amid rising Covid-19 positivity rates.
Following a special school board meeting on Friday, December 31, schools in Parkland released information to families about mandatory face coverings for all visitors and vendors inside schools.
Although masks remain optional for faculty and students, the school district encouraged them.
“While face coverings are not required for students, we strongly encourage parents to send their children to school with face coverings,” according to emails.
Schools continue to offer free voluntary COVID-19 testing for students with a signed health services consent form. The school district also recommended that all conferences and meetings, including SAC, SAF, and PTA meetings, be held online until further notice.
A message from Park Trails Elementary School mentioned transportation issues impacting staff, from flight cancelations to illness, as well as students, with “buses either showing up late or not at all.”
At Somerset Parkland Academy, the administration took a different approach, encouraging families to transition their children to virtual learning for the first five days of school after the break. To slow down the spread of COVID-19, students were asked to remain home not only if they were exposed but if they had traveled in the past ten days.
Send your news to Parkland’s #1 news source, Parkland Talk.