MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – In Miami-Dade County schools, the superintendent is changing the quarantine protocols for public middle schools.
Starting Monday, Oct. 11, if a student has no symptoms and came in direct contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, they’ll only have to quarantine for five days.
After five days, they can return to the classroom with a negative PCR test.
The same rules are already in place at the high school level.
“The protocols have worked,” said Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. “Student cases are on the rapid decline.”
In Miami-Dade County there were just 47 positive student cases as of Monday.
Hospital admissions are down and the positivity rate in Miami-Dade County is around 3.7 percent, according to Carvalho.
The vaccination rate in schools is going up as well, with Carvalho saying 57 percent of eligible students have gotten the shot.
This change still defies a new state rule, which says parents should decide if asymptomatic kids should quarantine or not after coming in contact with someone who tested positive for Covid.
Friction with the state also continues by way of the funding.
The superintendent said the state missed its deadline to apply for federal funding called ESSER 3.
“It is baffling to us that Florida is the only state in the union that has not done so, and the window in essence has closed,” said Carvalho.
For Miami-Dade, that’s $800 million it has not received.
Millions Carvalho said have already been committed for pandemic related expenses that are desperately needed at the local level, especially when it comes academic regression.