We, teachers, and parents of Duval County, want full-time Duval Homeroom available for all.
Kids keep their school enrollment, their teachers, peers, etc. because it is the closest
resemblance to a safe version of normal possible. Our kids, families, and staff deserve that. Our
concern is the feasibility of offering full-time Duval Homeroom in combination of ANY amount
of in-person instruction. Having an option for kids in schools prevents teachers from having a
choice to be virtual or not. The more options kids have, the fewer options teachers and staff
have. When any amount of in-person learning is an option, we will see schools
disproportionately fill. Families with means to do so will keep their kids home, and vice versa.
This will exacerbate the already inequitable effects the virus is having across communities of
color and communities of lower income. We know waiver 5.22 was approved, meaning all kids,
if they choose to attend DVIA, will be able to retain their Choice school seat. However, from
drafts of plans across the district I have seen, we anticipate that transferring to DVIA will be a
year-long commitment. Without Duval Homeroom offered for all, kids lose the option of
returning to their Choice school if it is safe to return at some point during the 2020-2021 school
year.
NO in-person school reopening plan is a safe reopening plan.
You have the support of parents and teachers to do the right thing, to stand up to government
overreach,
and put the safety of ALL our families at the forefront of any and all decisions made.
When being elected to the school board accepting the position of superintendent,
it was done with the idea that you would work for us,
the people that serve and trust that you will ALWAYS put the kid’s health, safety, and
educational needs first,
while protecting us, the staff of public schools that are working every day.
Any plan for reopening schools anywhere must account for the epidemiological context within
which schools plan to reopen, e.g. positive test rates, number of new cases per day, number of
total cases, hospitalization rates, mortality rates, percentage of population tested for infection
and antibodies, scope of contact tracing, and others.
No reopening plan should rely solely or mostly on promises to physically reduce the rate of
transmission on campus.
(e.g. mask requirements, physical distancing, physical barriers)
without meeting strict epidemiological benchmarks in the greater community.
Covid Act Now has real time information. Our current infection rate is 1.32%. That equates to
1,702 children. The mortality rate for under 18 is .5%, which equates to 8.5 children. I have a
child in a public school, I do not want him at risk. Eight children, and that is the lowest
percentage, that is being conservative. Do you want the deaths of eight children lingering in
your thoughts? Do not some of our kids in Duval have enough trouble just getting food, now we
are expecting 1,702 of them to have Covid-19, to need possible hospitalization, to need medical
care, of which many do not access. I taught many students who live with grandparents, live
with multiple family homes, live in shelters because they do not have homes. These are the kids
we are infecting; these are the kids we are sending back to school because we are afraid to
stand up for what’s right. It is a sad day when we let the most vulnerable be exposed because

 we are too weak to fight back. I am not sending this email on behalf of myself, I am sending it
on behalf of the over three thousand parents and teachers that I know share the same
ideas…and that number is still growing and continuing to grow across Florida and the nation. I
cannot account for those who are afraid to speak up.
•

In the United States, the number of COVID-19 cases in schools, childcare facilities, and
young people continues to rise. Cases include, but are not limited to:
o New York City: “30 teachers among 74 [Department of Education]
employees to die of COVID-19.” (ABC 7 New York, May 11, 2020)
o Queen Creek, Arizona: “Nearly two dozen students and eight staff
members have tested positive for COVID-19 at Canyon State Academy, a
boarding school for at-risk youth in Queen Creek.” (AZ Central, June 30,
2020)
o Lake Oswego, Oregon: “A child care center in Lake Oswego is the first in
Oregon to experience a publicly reported outbreak of the COVID-19 virus,
with eight children and 12 teachers testing positive.”
(Willamette Week, June 30, 2020)
o Oregon: “Coronavirus infections rising fastest among kids younger than
10, dimming prospects for Oregon’s school reopening plans.” (The
Oregonian, July 1, 2020)
o Florida: “One 11-year-old and two teenagers died from COVID-19-related
complications in Florida and more than 7,000 other children under 18
have tested positive for the disease since the pandemic began in March,
according to Florida’s Department of Health.” (Miami Herald, July 1,
2020)\
o Texas: “As parents nationwide wonder if it's safe to send kids back to day
care, Texas is grappling with a surge of Covid-19 cases from child care
centers. At least 1,335 people have tested positive from child care
facilities in Texas, the state's Department of Health and Human Services
reported Monday, citing figures from Friday. Of those infected, 894 were
staff members and 441 were children. The cases came from 883 child
care facilities that are open in the state, DHHS said.”
(CNN, July 6, 2020)
o Missouri: “Missouri leaders knew the risk of convening thousands of kids
at summer camps across the state during a pandemic, the state's top
health official said, and insisted that camp organizers have plans in place
to keep an outbreak from happening...Missouri is one of several states to
report outbreaks at summer camps. The Kanakuk camp near Branson

 ended up sending its teenage campers home. On Friday, the local health
department announced 49 positive cases of the COVID-19 virus at the
camp. By Monday, the number had jumped to 82.” (ABC News, July 7,
2020)
o Norwalk, Connecticut: “Summer school classes held at Norwalk High
School are switching to distance learning for the rest of the week after a
person in the building tested positive for COVID-19. The district
announced on social media on Tuesday night that “a member of the
Norwalk High School community who was in the building for summer
classes” tested positive for coronavirus. The person diagnosed was in the
building on Monday, July 6 which marked the first day of summer
school.” (The Hour, July 8, 2020)
o DeWitt, New York: “At least 16 children and adults have come down with
the coronavirus after it spread from contact at a DeWitt family in-home
child care. The cluster of the coronavirus cases has made people in four
families sick, including six children at the child care, one sibling, seven
parents and two grandmothers, according to Heidi Feathers, who
operates the licensed in-home child care with two other parents.”
(Syracuse.com, July 9, 2020)
•

Historical evidence demonstrates the efficiency with which COVID-19 can spread
throughout a school, even in countries that have far better controlled the pandemic,
infecting young people and adults alike. These cases include, but are not limited to:
o Mascouche, Quebec, Canada: “Twelve out of 27 children contracted
COVID-19, as did four employees.” (Montreal Gazette, May 5, 2020)
o Skellefteå, Sweden: “The Kelley School in Skellefteå has reopened after
two weeks of closure. Nearly 1 in 4 of the teachers sampled tested
positive for covid-19, according to the region's testing. As Läraren.se told
us at the end of April, a teacher of the age of 60 has also died in the
suites [sic] of the disease. Most of the infected teachers who have been
infected work at the high school level.”
(Lӓraren, May 6, 2020, translated from Swedish via Google Translate)
o France: “Just a week after one-third of French schoolchildren went back
to school in an easing of the coronavirus lockdown, there has been a
flurry of about 70 Covid-19 cases linked to schools.” (The Independent,
May 18, 2020)

 o Amsterdam, Netherlands: “An elementary school in the Netherlands
closed in the city of The Hague on Wednesday after two teachers tested
positive for coronavirus and seven students developed gastrointestinal
symptoms.” (Reuters, June 3, 2020)
o Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada: “Almost an entire class of students at a
Trois-Rivières school contracted COVID-19 despite physical distancing and
other prevention measures.” (Montreal Gazette, June 4,
2020)
o South Africa: “Over 700 South African schools have already been affected
by Covid-19 since reopening just weeks ago. The Department of
Education has revealed that 523 learners and over 1,000 teachers had
been infected.” (Briefly, June 28, 2020)
•

Other countries, including those that have handled the pandemic better than the U.S.,
have ordered schools to close soon after reopening due to a rise in local cases,
including, but not limited to:
o Israel: “Five schools and kindergartens were closed Friday due to
coronavirus infections, according to the Ministry of Education. In total, 92
educational institutions have been shuttered since students and teachers
went back to school last month. More than 13,000 students and staff are
in self-isolation, and 304 people have tested positive for the virus.”
(Haaretz, May 6, 2020)
o “On Tuesday, in testimony to the Israeli parliament, Dr. Udi Kliner,
Sadetzki’s deputy, reported that schools—not restaurants or gyms—
turned out to be the country’s worst mega-infectors. (Again, this should
be of interest to Americans who have been told by a presidential tweet in
all caps that "SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!")” (Yahoo! News, July
8, 2020)
o Seoul, South Korea: “More than 500 schools closed again Friday to
students after briefly reopening, as South Korea moves to stamp out a
resurgence of the coronavirus in the capital, Seoul, and its surrounding
metropolitan area.” (CNN, May 29, 2020)
o Beijing, China: “Beijing raised its level of health alert to the second
highest on Tuesday, ordering schools to close and urging people to work
from home as China’s government pressed to extinguish a spike in
coronavirus infections menacing the capital.” (New York Times, June 16,
2020)

 •

A growing body of research suggests that young people are plenty capable of
contracting and transmitting COVID-19, endangering themselves, school staff of all
ages, and other higher risk individuals. This research includes, but is not limited to:
o “We conclude that a considerable percentage of infected people in all age
groups, including those who are pre- or mild-symptomatic, carry viral loads
likely to represent infectivity. Based on these results and uncertainty about
the remaining incidence, we recommend caution and careful monitoring
during gradual lifting of non-pharmaceutical interventions. In particular,
there is little evidence from the present study to support suggestions that
children may not be as infectious as adults.” (MedRxiv, June 9, 2020)
o “Younger people are making up a growing percentage of new coronavirus
cases in cities and states where the virus is now surging, a trend that has
alarmed public health officials and prompted renewed pleas for masks and
social distancing.” (New York Times, June 25, 2020)
o “Our findings show that symptomatic neonates, children, and teenagers shed
infectious SARS-CoV-2, suggesting that transmission from them is
plausible...Our data show that viral load at diagnosis is comparable to that of
adults and that symptomatic children of all ages shed infectious virus in early
acute illness, a prerequisite for further transmission. Isolation of infectious
virus was largely comparable with that of adults, although 2 specimens
yielded an isolate at lower viral load.” (Emerging Infectious Diseases, June 30,
2020)

•

A growing body of evidence suggests that COVID-19 can easily spread within schooland classroom-like environments, including, but not limited to:
o

“Speech droplets generated by asymptomatic carriers of severe acute
respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are increasingly considered
to be a likely mode of disease transmission. Highly sensitive laser light
scattering observations have revealed that loud speech can emit thousands
of oral fluid droplets per second. In a closed, stagnant air environment, they
disappear from the window of view with time constants in the range of 8 to
14 min…” (PNAS, June 2, 2020)

o

“The coronavirus is finding new victims worldwide, in bars and restaurants,
offices, markets and casinos, giving rise to frightening clusters of infection
that increasingly confirm what many scientists have been saying for months:
The virus lingers in the air indoors, infecting those nearby...Ventilation
systems in schools, nursing homes, residences and businesses may need to
minimize recirculating air and add powerful new filters. Ultraviolet lights may

 be needed to kill viral particles floating in tiny droplets indoors...But in an
open letter to the W.H.O., 239 scientists in 32 countries have outlined the
evidence showing that smaller particles can infect people, and are calling for
the agency to revise its recommendations.” (New York Times, July 4, 2020)