Tarrant County Public Health is recommending all schools in the county learn online-only, citing a two-week upward trend in both the positivity rate and increase in hospital visits for COVID-19-like illness.
Tarrant County Public Health has a return to school guidance dashboard that analyzes whether schools should attend virtually, in-person or a hybrid of both based on the COVID-19 related data.
The latest dashboard update, which happens every Monday, said all schools in the county should be virtual-only because of the COVID-19-like illness trend and the percent of positive COVID-19 tests is 11.2%. Both have been increasing for the past two weeks.
The county tracks the emergency department visits for people experiencing COVID-19-like illness, meaning both a fever and either a cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing.
Fort Worth ISD board members are planning to revote Tuesday on whether the district should extend virtual learning into early November. The measure failed at a meeting last week. If it had passed, in-person learning wouldn’t be offered until at least Nov. 2.
Late Monday night Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price issued a statement she said she co-authored with various civic, business and community leaders imploring the school district to give parents the option to return their children to school.
“Now is the time for adults to come together and make the decisions that are In the best interest or children,” the statement reads. “Parents must be given the option to decide which learning environments best fit their needs and the right to use local data and health metrics to inform decisions of whether to return kids back to tangible in-person instruction…Parents should be given the option of whether to place their kids back in the classroom or continue ‘distance learning.’ It is time for leadership to step up and do the right thing for our kids.”
