First some background -- Union County is one of the few remaining school systems in North Carolina not requiring masks for students. Of course, the school system has already been overrun with Covid but the right-wing school board doesn't believe Covid is "real".
Not only do they not mandate masks but they have deliberately started to ignore the state requirements for Covid contact tracing, Covid reporting, Covid quarantine, social distancing, cleaning and a host of other requirements. Effectively trying to pretend Covid does not exist.
Now the county health director and state have had enough of the Union school system's nonsense and is calling out their falsehoods and refusing to accept their behavior.
New legal threat emerges in Union County showdown over school COVID rules
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article254584822.html
A rift between Union County schools and the county’s health department has widened — this time over how COVID-19 contact tracing will be done to ensure a student or teacher who was exposed to the virus stays home until there’s assurance they are not infectious.
A newly-public letter sent Friday to the school’s superintendent from Union County Public Health Director Dennis Joyner invokes the health official’s authority under North Carolina law to require the district to take further precautions during the pandemic.
For weeks, the Union County Public School board has maintained they’re acting in accordance with North Carolina law. The district’s superintendent also says schools are supporting the county’s health department. However, the state’s top health official
earlier this month and now, the county’s health director, say otherwise.
A rift between Union County schools and the county’s health department has widened — this time over how COVID-19 contact tracing will be done to ensure a student or teacher who was exposed to the virus stays home until there’s assurance they are not infectious.
A newly-public letter sent Friday to the school’s superintendent from Union County Public Health Director Dennis Joyner invokes the health official’s authority under North Carolina law to require the district to take further precautions during the pandemic.
For weeks, the Union County Public School board has maintained they’re acting in accordance with North Carolina law. The district’s superintendent also says schools are supporting the county’s health department. However, the state’s top health official
earlier this month and now, the county’s health director, say otherwise.
A rift between Union County schools and the county’s health department has widened — this time over how COVID-19 contact tracing will be done to ensure a student or teacher who was exposed to the virus stays home until there’s assurance they are not infectious.
A newly-public letter sent Friday to the school’s superintendent from Union County Public Health Director Dennis Joyner invokes the health official’s authority under North Carolina law to require the district to take further precautions during the pandemic.
For weeks, the Union County Public School board has maintained they’re acting in accordance with North Carolina law. The district’s superintendent also says schools are supporting the county’s health department. However, the state’s top health official
earlier this month and now, the county’s health director, say otherwise.
As of Friday, the
most recent data available, around 1,500 people (mostly UCPS students) are not allowed at school due to having COVID or having been exposed. That translates to around five people quarantined in Union schools for every one positive case detected.
Contact tracing dispute
Some changes in quarantining rules and the number of people temporarily not allowed at school were expected after a school board vote last week. Then, N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen said her office was poised to take legal action if the UCPS board did not rescind its policy, which she said ran afoul of CDC guidelines, pandemic best practices and state public health law, due to the effective suspension of close contact quarantining.
In response to Cohen’s threat, the school board decided to revise its COVID-19 protocols Sept. 20 — namely to reduce the length of quarantining for students who haven’t tested positive while also agreeing the health department could enforce quarantine periods for anyone deemed a close contact. Another part of the board’s policy change said any student returning from quarantine before a 14-day period needs to wear a mask indoors at school.
The problem, according to Joyner, is that the health department — without more cooperation from school officials, he says — can’t isolate potentially sick students from classrooms quickly or effectively, even when they’ve likely been exposed to someone with COVID.
In response to Joyner’s 3-page letter — which lays out specific steps he wants the school district to take and mentions “criminal or civil” enforcement action for those who don’t apply with public health laws — the superintendent wrote a short response.
“I appreciate your acknowledgment that it is the statutory duty of Public Health to perform contact tracing responsibilities. My staff will continue to provide information requested to support you and your staff in these responsibilities,” part of Houlihan’s letter states.
Joyner’s demands
In the letter, Joyner says he’s “formally requiring” UCPS employees immediately begin to comply with those steps, citing public health director authorities he has
under state law.
The Charlotte Observer asked UCPS for a copy of its current contract tracing and COVID-19 protocols plan developed since Cohen’s involvement earlier this month. As of Tuesday, officials have refused to provide a copy of that document, saying it was not complete.
In Joyner’s letter, he’s says the district must:
▪ Keep students, staff and visitors away from school if they “are known or reasonably suspected to be infected with COVID-19.”
This part of the district COVID-19 rules has, so far this school year, not been in dispute — at least not publicly — between school and health department officials. Staff, parents, students and others may self-report symptoms or a positive test but the health department also gets notification of positive tests among residents.
▪ Enforce close contact quarantine requirements, meaning mandatory quarantining of students and adults if they’ve been within six feet of someone with COVID-19 for more than 15 minutes in a one-day period. Joyner says UCPS needs to “promptly communicate” to parents and guardians, as well as staff, if they are required to quarantine due to close contact exposure.
This aspect has been central to the conflict between Joyner’s department and school board members, some of whom say school-level nurses do not have the time, nor authority, to require employees or students keep away from school due to suspicion they may have been infected.
Throughout North Carolina, however, public school systems are jointly handling contact tracing efforts with local health departments. Under state health recommendations for reopening schools, North Carolina’s DHHS says close contact quarantining — and the prerequisite contact tracing effort — isn’t needed if a district requires masks in school.
▪ Provide state and local health officials, for contact tracing purposes, with seating charts and class rosters, as well as contact information for families. This would include contact information and identification of who would have had close contact during class or in a school activity with any student or employee who is later diagnosed with COVID-19.
It’s unclear exactly how this process of sharing information has gone since the board’s two votes affecting district policies. Joyner’s letter contends the school board “has taken several actions to prohibit UCPS staff from participating in contact tracing,” relative to those students or staff who might be considered a close contact.
Mask-optional district
Since the beginning of the school year last month, Union County’s school board has held strong against a mask mandate, despite guidance to do so from local and state health officials and the StrongSchoolsNC Toolkit, which has largely guided reopening classrooms this fall.
School Board Chairperson Melissa Merrell said State Health Director Elizabeth Cuervo Tilson wanted the district to implement a mask mandate, but Merrell told her: “We are mask optional.”
In his letter, Joyner reiterated that the Union County school board’s ongoing decision not to adopt a masking requirement forces the district to have to quarantine students or staff who are close contacts with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
“In order to protect our children and the community from the dangerous public health impacts of COVID-19, our staff has been diligently working to identify close contacts as required by the state-mandated control measures,” Joyner wrote. “The Union County Board of Education, however, has taken several actions to prohibit UCPS staff from participating in contact tracing to determine close contacts of positive cases who must be excluded from in-person school in accordance with the control measures.”
“In light of our shared responsibility to protect the health and safety of the students and staff in Union County schools, and to the Union County community as a whole, I hope we can work together to mitigate the most dangerous outcomes of COVID-19 and the Delta variant and soon return to a pattern of normalcy,” Joyner wrote.
Superintendent Houlihan responded in his letter, directing Union County’s health department staff to contact Assistant Superintendent Jarrod McCraw or his team if there is an issue.
“We can respond to your concerns more efficiently when they come to us from your staff upon identification instead of from NCDHHS staff or via written correspondence,” Houlihan wrote.
