Brownsville Independent School District administrators have said they would like to start face-to-face instruction as soon as possible as it is deemed safe, perhaps as early as the projected Sept. 28th opening.
But if what happened at Lopez Early College High School last week is any indication of how they handle positive cases among staff at the campus, parents must take notice and decide for themselves if they want to send their kids there.
To begin with, only certified staff (administrative staff, teachers, paraprofessionals, counselors, etc.) were given the option of working from home. Classified staff like maintenance, aides, etc., are required to report to work.
A week ago last Thursday, one of the classified staff handing out backpacks containing school supplies for the coming year tested positive for COVID-19 and was sent home. The worker had been personally handling the backpacks and school materials given out to parents and students at the school.
Fellow workers were told to stay home on Friday, but to report to work on Monday. That following Monday (August 31), the classified staff arrived to find that the campus had not been disinfected. In fact, it wan't until last Thursday (a week after the worker was found positive) that the facility was disinfected. The classified employees worked for four days before the facility was finally sanitized.
The worker had participated with the rest of her co-workers at an in-service and came in contact with the materials (laptops, hotspots and iPads) being handed out to students and parents. Even after the positive case was detected, the materials that had been handled by the infected worker were not disinfected but distributed anyway.
How many homes received a dose of the virus last week? It's anybody's guess.
But not to worry. Principal Dahlia Aguilar opted to work from home after the infection was discovered. Meanwhile, the staff there has run out of Clorox and are using hand sanitizer that has an expiration date going back years. Shields and inexpensive (read ineffective) face coverings are the only PPE
The administration has kept the issue of positive cases at the district's campuses hush hush, but as it is, only skeleton crews are present because of the detected infections. The planned Sept. 28 opening is still on track. But judging by this early performance with COVID-19, should parents feel safe exposing their kids?