Central Bucks Seems Unlikely To Address Letter, Change COVID Plan
DOYLESTOWN, PA — Nearly two weeks after Doylestown Health experts urged the Central Bucks board of school directors to reconsider the district's COVID-19 plan in the name of public health, the school district's health and safety plan seems unlikely to change.
Board members Karen Smith, Mariam Mahmud, and Tabitha Dell'Angelo reached out to board president Dana Hunter by text to ask for a special meeting in light of the hospital's message. The three Democrats had pushed for changes to the health and safety plan in the most recent meeting, too.
"The majority of the board do not want to change the [health and safety plan]," Hunter wrote in response, according to text messages between the four published by the Bucks County Courier Times. "The repeated requests to call a special meeting aren't going to change that."
Hunter was referring to a clause in the board policies which specifies that the board president can refuse to hold a special meeting unless a majority of the board calls for one.
Smith said she has not actually heard from the board's five other Republican directors on the issue.
The current plan stayed in place after the Central Bucks school board's January meeting, when the board voted 6-3 along party lines against updates that would have put the plan in line with CDC, Pennsylvania Department of Education, and Pennsylvania Department of Health guidelines.
In the letter from Doylestown Health, president and CEO James Brexler and chief medical officer Scott Levy asked board members to consider immunocompromised community members and those with comorbidities in reassessing quarantine and isolation times for those who are exposed to, or test positive for, COVID-19 in the mask-optional district.
Smith said she finds the board majority's silence upsetting in light of the hospital officials' request.
"I’d like to be in a position to help [the hospitals], and we’re not," she told Patch in a phone interview.
She said the board has received messages from parents of immunocompromised children who fear for their safety.
But while those messages are still coming in, the overall volume of communication to the board is down, according to Smith. She thinks that's because people are discouraged.
“In general, in the last six weeks, the amount of email we have gotten has actually dropped off," Smith explained. "I feel like some parents have given up, because they’ve emailed a number of times and never get a response.”
Other board members, including Hunter, have not responded to Patch's multiple requests for comment.
Read more of the latest Central Bucks news: Central Bucks Board Votes Against CDC's COVID-19 Guidance
Doylestown Health Urges Central Bucks Board To Rethink Plan
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This article originally appeared on the Doylestown Patch
