2 Central Florida schools reopen after closing due to COVID-19 cases

Students at two Central Florida schools are returning to the classroom Monday after they closed due to COVID-19 cases.

Harmony Middle School in Osceola County and Golfview Elementary School in Brevard County were shut down for about two weeks because of positive coronavirus cases on campus.

The school superintendent in Osceola County said the district is ready to bring the students back.

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The district said crews have been deep cleaning the school since its been closed for the past two weeks.

Nearly 600 students and 80 staff members were plucked from in-person learning and put into virtual learning after positive COVID-19 cases arose just one week into the start of the school year.

“I absolutely believe it was the right decision,” said Osceola County Superintendent Debra Pace.

Pace said it started with four COVID-19 positive staff members and those four cases spread quickly. There were 17 positive cases at the middle school.

“When you start with 17 staff members, the potential incident of spread it just becomes too great,” Pace said. “And so this was a really good way for us to isolate the situation, shut it down.”

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The school district will start on-site batch testing this week for students and staff, which is voluntary pool testing.

The samples will be taken from several people and one lab test will be done to detect the virus in that group.

Channel 9 was told that a majority of the students will be returning to face-to-face learning.

Eleven of nearly 600 students have asked to stay in digital learning.

Video: 2 Central Florida schools reopen after closing due to COVID-19 cases Students at two Central Florida schools are returning to the classroom Monday after they closed due to COVID-19 cases.

Cox Media Group