Three members of team Duval have passed in a little over a week. Where is the coach?

I got an advanced copy of Superintendent Greene’s email, the one we all know is coming after three members of our school family passed away in a little over a week.  Hopes and prayers, hopes and prayers, hope prayers, hopes and prayers, hopes and prayers. Best  

I, for one, am tired of hopes and prayers and would like some action. We desperately need to address contact tracing and social distancing, you know, half of the things that are supposed to keep us safe.  The board and super can no longer sit idly by.

Imagine this, you get home, and the lead story is forty people died on Jacksonville Roads in one day. That would freak you out, wouldn’t it? What about police or gangs kill forty Jacksonville citizens today, or forty die in Jacksonville from eating tainted subs from the public deli. All of those would be shocking and demoralizing. But when 40 people die of COVID, which is how many died yesterday, we all kind of shrug our shoulders and say, glad it wasn’t us. Well, friends, when teachers, paras, and students start dying, it is us.    

Everybody should stop right now and go to the DCPS COVID dashboard. 

 https://c19sitdash.azurewebsites.net/

DCPS COVID-19 Case Dashboard About this Report . The dashboard shows the number of students and staff attending or working in brick-and-mortar schools with reported cases of COVID-19. c19sitdash.azurewebsites.net

 There were 51 students and 29 staff! This wasn’t a dump day like last week either; this was just a day. This is going to be the new normal. 

The thing is, contact tracing was abysmal when they were reporting a handful of cases a day. How’s it going to be now that the number is dozens?  

We must get serious as a district about contact tracing. That’s what anywhere who has successfully fought back against the pandemic has done. Sadly, Greene and the board seem content to let the DOH do a job they are incredibly incapable of doing. Oh, it’s their fault; they are the ones doing it; it's not on us. The buck certainly doesn’t stop with the board or super. 

At the very least, people, families, and staff should be made aware if there is a sick teacher teaching their kid or a sick kid in their room and should be made aware immediately, and then they can decide how they want to protect themselves. DCPS is robbing people of the ability to defend themselves, and that’s reckless and unacceptable. 

We could and should be doing better, but all we are getting is hopes and prayers.