Duval Department of Health does away with contact tracing in schools

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Students go back to school Tuesday after a long holiday weekend, and for those at Duval County Public Schools, there will no longer be contact tracing of COVID-positive cases.

DCPS Superintendent Dr. Diana Greene shared the news in an email Friday, saying the health department has done away with contact tracing. Greene said the district will notify families of COVID cases in a student’s classroom by letter.

Just last week, a spokesperson for DCPS told Action News Jax that the school district had been working to meet with the health department about contact tracing issues parents have complained about; some having said they’d never been notified of their child having been exposed to COVID-19 at school. DCPS said it had been hoping to find out what had changed.

“Especially right now with Omicron and the cases increasing, it seems like a terrible time to get rid of the contact tracing,” Tiffany Woodie said. Parents like her say the health department should be doing everything it can to protect people in schools.

Teacher Elwood Thompson agrees. “We have kids getting sick,” he said. “The idea of not contact tracing, how are we ever going to figure out what’s happening?”

Thompson and Woodie agree contact tracing was never good to begin with, but both say it’s better than nothing. Thompson is dismayed by the health department: ”Have some guts. Stand up to the state and say ‘we’re going to do what’s right. No matter what it takes, we’re going to what’s right to take care of the schools and the public.’ That’s what I would tell the Department of Health,” he said.

And even though school districts can no longer mandate masks for students, Woodie says it needs to be done. ”I feel like our school districts should be doing as much as they can even if it puts them at odds with the law,” she said. “If we’re not willing to fight for our children, who will?”

DCPS says it will continue updating its COVID-19 dashboard online, where you can see how many cases there are at each school.

Action News Jax reached out to the health department in Duval County.

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