POSITION STATEMENT ON THE REOPENING OF ORANGE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a global emergency response that has had a tremendous effect on the daily lives of families.  While it appears that the incidence and risk of COVID-19 are lower for children, this crisis has dramatically impacted their quality of life. As a result, the Orange County Council of PTAs/PTSAs (OCCPTA) has been taking special steps to ensure that the concerns of our students, families, faculty, and staff are heard as plans are being developed to reopen schools.

The OCCPTA urges our local, state, and national officials to immediately prioritize and address the basic needs of students, faculty, and staff who have been adversely impacted by the COVID-19 crisis before any considerations are made to reopen schools.  Those basic needs must include adequate food, facilities, health, and safety.

We recognize that during school closures our students have lost the stability and routines that all students and parents depend on.  While there is a need to return to school, the well-being of our students, faculty, and staff must be a priority for all of us. 

In response to plans to reopen public schools, the OCCPTA implores the following strategies be implemented to ensure safety, equity, and a meaningful learning experience for all children:

1. All plans to reopen schools must adhere to the School Safety Guidelines laid out by the Centers for Disease Control, including face coverings, social distancing, hygiene, and additional sanitation measures.
2. Florida Department of Health must provide guidance to parents and caregivers about the criteria for testing children for COVID-19, listing of healthcare providers and locations of testing sites for children and effective treatment options to consider.
3. Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) must ensure remote learning plans are accessible to all students, especially students in foster care, kinship care, students that are homeless and those involved in the criminal justice system.
4. OCPS must provide safe transportation to students who need it.
5. In an effort to counteract racism, xenophobia, fear of, and violence towards all communities, OCPS must continue to denounce all forms of discrimination.
6. OCPS must protect students identified as being infected with the virus from the insidious danger of the stigma that may extend to that student.
7. OCPS should establish an actionable plan to make sure certain populations of children at higher risk for adversity are always accounted for – including the homeless, disabled, children living in mixed immigration status families, children with special needs, the incarcerated and those children in the foster care and/or justice systems.
8. OCPS should encourage parental and caregiver involvement by offering families with engaging and enriching content to share with their children at home that will enhance their learning experiences.
9. OCPS should engage all stakeholders in the planning, implementation, and monitoring stages of reopening.
10. Florida Department of Education and state government should give local schools and school districts greater flexibility and autonomy to address the unique challenges in their communities.
11. Any plan to reopen public schools need to be mindful of existing technology, educational, and economic gaps.
12. OCPS need to provide clear and transparent information about the varying learning options with an opportunity for public feedback before plans are finalized and implemented.
13. OCPS should have plans in place for outreach to students who do not return to school with special consideration for their individual circumstances and an understanding that some students will face unique challenges and may need additional support and assistance to return to school.
14. Any decision to reopen schools should take into consideration the legitimate concerns of families, students, teachers, staff, and health professionals and make reasonable efforts to accommodate them if possible.
15. Policies regarding the decision to discontinue isolation after suspected or confirmed COVID-19 should take into account individual circumstances including the hardships of extended isolation and the cost of testing.
16. OCPS should provide multilingual updates for families across multiple platforms with current, accurate, and useful information.
17. OCPS should establish plans for continuity of learning to mitigate the effects of significant absences on student achievement.
18. OCCPTA urges local, state, and federal agencies to provide the necessary funding to ensure that schools have the resources they need to reopen as safely and successfully as possible.
19. We encourage OCPS to invest in critical programs that identify and support students with mental health concerns and expand school-based health and nursing services.
20. OCCPTA encourages OCPS to allocate additional resources for students receiving special education services that may be more negatively affected by distance-learning and may be disproportionately impacted by interruptions in regular education.

The COVID-19 crisis has had devastating public health, educational and economic impacts on families around the world.  The OCCPTA is committed to keeping the unique needs of vulnerable students, their families, faculty, and staff in our communities a top priority.  While this pandemic put families in harm’s way, we continue to fight for the rights, dignity, equity, and opportunity for every child.  Our success must not be measured by the students and families who navigate this crisis, but by ensuring that no student is left behind.