In county after county Florida health directors’ refrain to school leaders was the same: Their role was to provide information, not recommendations.
state leaders told school boards they would need Health Department approval if they wanted to keep classrooms closed.Following a directive from DeSantis’ administration, county health directors across Florida refused to give school boards advice about one of the most wrenching public health decisions in modern history: whether to reopen schools in a worsening pandemic, a Gannett USA TODAY NETWORK review found.
Keeping campuses closed, they said, risked violating an edict last month from state Education Commission Richard Corcoran, which decreed public schools “must open brick and mortar schools at least five days per week.” The directors’ refusal to guide educators through the roiling school-reopening debate stemmed directly from a directive by Surgeon General Dr. Scott Rivkees, DeSantis’ appointee to oversee the Department of Health and its county offices, The Palm Beach Post found.
“What I can say is, has ordered for the schools to be open,” Stahl said. “The education commissioner has ordered schools to be open. So all I can do is give them statistics.”In Palm Beach County, health director Dr. Alina Alonso told school district officials she, too, was instructed not to give formal recommendations about whether to reopen, the school board’s chairman said.
A DeSantis spokesman referred questions about the state’s directive back to the Department of Health.These tips will help parents prepare for a successful school year, even if it is virtual.The idea that health directors should not give school boards recommendations on such a weighty public health matter is an extraordinary shift, one that runs contrary to county health departments’ historic role, two former health directors said.
“The health officer must have a say into when schools should open or reopen and should have active participation,” Malecki said. “Whether the state puts pressure on you or not, you have to weigh the balance of what’s best for the community.” They are also toward the end of their careers, which she said may have insulated them from political pressure.In Palm Beach, Alonso declined to give a formal recommendation but did tell school district officials during a small advisory committee meeting that she believed the numbers of COVID cases were too high to reopen classes.
Although Corcorcan’s order explicitly empowered “local departments of health” to give reopening directives, Orange County’s health director claimed it was not his place to weigh in.
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