School Board Sets Emergency Mask Meeting For Friday Afternoon

SARASOTA COUNTY, FL — The Sarasota County School Board voted unanimously at its regular meeting Tuesday to set an emergency meeting to discuss Sarasota County Schools’ mask policy as COVID-19 cases surge in the community.

The emergency meeting will take place Friday at 3 p.m.

Face coverings are optional for all students and staff, but strongly encouraged for those who are unvaccinated, according to the district's Return2Learn guide. Schools will have masks available for those who need one.

As of Tuesday, 178 students and 43 district staff members tested positive for coronavirus and were isolated at home, according to the school district’s COVID-19 dashboard. Through contract tracing, another 138 students and nine staff members were also quarantining at home.

The 2021-22 school year started Aug. 10. By the end of the first day, Superintendent Dr. Brennan Asplen announced that the district would suspend all field trips and non-essential visitors and volunteers on campuses for 30 days to prevent the spread of the virus.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Asplen expressed concern about the number of students and employees who are out from school because of quarantining based on contact tracing or testing positive for COVID-19.

“We are at a point in our operations area — a critical point in our operations area — we won’t be able to operate the public school system,” the superintendent said.

In transportation, so many bus drivers are out because of coronavirus that the district might have to double run buses.

“That means students could get home a couple hours late. They could get to school a couple hours late,” he said. “If we don’t have enough bus drivers driving the buses, which we don’t, and then you throw in quarantining and they’re staying home because they have to, then we have a situation where we’re not able to transport students when we want to transport students.”

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Cafeteria and food service workers were impacted by the virus, as well. Two schools have so many employees out that they’re “grab-and-go situations,” Asplen said. Students were served paper bag lunches prepared in advance.

The custodial staff in several schools has also been hit hard by the virus. With so many employees out in this department, non-custodial workers were forced to work overtime to clean the schools at night, the superintendent said.

And since the start of the school year, the assistant principals at district schools have focused all their time and energy on contact tracing, leaving them little time for anything else, Asplen said.

He also worries about the students who aren’t sick but who are missing school because of contact tracing.

“For every one positive case, we’ll have to quarantine four to 30 people out of the schools,” he said. “So, there’s a lot of people home who aren’t sick. They’re not sick, they’re at home and they’re not able to participate in school and they’re not able to work.”

During the meeting, the school board also heard from a range of speakers – health care professionals, parents, residents and students – who were split on their support of a mask mandate in the schools.

The board will reconvene on this matter Friday afternoon. The meeting’s agenda will be posted to the school district website.