BOCA RATON, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) — The Palm Beach County School District is closing in on 1,000 COVID-19 cases, a disappointing milestone likely to be reached this week. The school system starts the week with 918 confirmed COVID-19 cases. The split: 524 students and 394 staff members.
Among the schools with the highest number of COVID-19 cases since “brick and mortar” education became an option: Boca Raton Community High School with 29 cases, Palm Beach Central High School 28 cases, Calusa Elementary with 20 cases, Hammock Pointe Elementary with 14 cases, Omni Middle School with 12 cases. The publicly released numbers are traditionally several days behind reality.
The issue continues to be parents sending sick kids to school, despite pleas — even demands — from the school district to keep them home.
“There are a lot of very selfish parents who just don’t get it,” said a school official to BocaNewsnow.com. “School nurses are still seeing kids with obvious COVID-19 symptoms, flu symptoms, even colds being sent to school when they need to be kept home. But parents are not keeping these kids home. It’s very much a problem in South County (Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Boynton Beach).”
Children sent to school sick are isolated until parents return to pick them up.
While the school district publicly maintains that there is no indication of student to student spread, there is now concern that Florida Department of Health officials may be providing the school district misleading information at the order of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
