Parents knowingly sent their child to school after they tested positive for Covid-19. 75 classmates were forced to quarantine
Parents of one elementary student knew their child tested positive for the virus but continued to send them to school for seven days, Dr. Brett Geithman, superintendent of Larkspur-Corte Madera School District in Marin County, told CNN.
The student attends Neil Cummins Elementary School in Corte Madera, about 30 minutes north of San Francisco.
Geithman told CNN school officials were only made known of the positive case after Marin County Public Health contacted them, because it was never reported in the school’s database.
The public health department has a process with all laboratories in the area so they are notified of new cases. They then follow up with the school to confirm the student has been undergoing quarantine, Dr. Matt Willis, Marin County’s public health officer, told CNN.
“In this case both the school and public health were given inaccurate information by the parents, which led to a prolonged interval of exposure.” Willis said.
“This is not only a violation of basic ethics, it’s a violation of law.” Willis told CNN. “Violation can lead to a fine or criminal prosecution as a misdemeanor. Because of the seriousness of this violation we’ve referred the case to the District Attorney.”
“We did not know this positive case existed.” Geithman shared in a written statement to CNN. “Upon calling the household, we learned that the student tested positive, did not inform the schools, and then sent the student and their sibling to school for seven days.”
There were multiple attempts made asking the family to report the name of the school, but they did not return those calls, Geithman added. When the health department eventually figured out the school’s name, they notified school officials.
Geithman told CNN that staff at Neil Cummins Elementary acted immediately.
“The principal, nurse and I tested roughly 50 students and 10 staff the morning of the 19th in our gym.” Geithman told CNN.
Reactions among officials and parents
“We’ve been highly successful of having kids here every single day for over a year now and 99%+ of our families follow the rules and understand the rules,” Geithman told CNN. “This is an opportunity to look at this as a call to action and ask every single person to act with integrity. We all depend on one another.”
Geithman said this was the district’s first classroom-based transmission.
“Their (the family) initial response was that they were uncertain of Covid protocols,” Geithman said. “The process the parent was instructed to do by Marin County Public Health was to quarantine.”
The school district told CNN they have taken action against the parents, but details of that punishment remain confidential.
“They’ve since issued apology letters to me, the principal, and the teachers involved and recognized their lack of judgement,” Geithman told CNN. He also noted all the children are recovered from Covid-19 and there was no serious illness among the group.
“This is a community that takes Covid protocols very seriously and acts on it. This is a one-off where a family made a terrible decision that impacted many students and comprised the health and safety of our schools,” Geithman said.
Students and staff are required to mask up inside the classroom, according to Geithman, who says, “If we didn’t have strict Covid protocols, the aftermath of this could’ve been much worse.”
