{"id":14149,"date":"2021-08-16T17:56:04","date_gmt":"2021-08-16T21:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=14149"},"modified":"2021-08-16T17:56:14","modified_gmt":"2021-08-16T21:56:14","slug":"mckeel-academy-staff-must-mask-up-after-12-individuals-test-positive-for-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2021\/08\/16\/mckeel-academy-staff-must-mask-up-after-12-individuals-test-positive-for-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"McKeel Academy staff must mask up after 12 individuals test positive for COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Schools of\u00a0McKeel\u00a0Academy have issued a mask mandate for all staff, effective Tuesday after 12\u00a0individuals\u00a0tested positive for COVID-19,\u00a0“our largest single-day rate\u00a0of infection since the onset of this global\u00a0pandemic.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSouth McKeel has now surpassed the total number of cases it had during all of last year,\u201d Director of Schools Alan Black said in an email to parents. \u201cIf this data causes you to pause, it should.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black said the charter school system, consisting of South McKeel Academy, McKeel Academy Central \u2013 both elementary schools \u2013 and McKeel Academy of Technology, a middle and high school, was \u201csignificantly worse off today than we were a year ago this time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polk County has seen a spike in COVID cases, with 12 children hospitalized across the region in the past week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

McKeel\u00a0Academy asked parents, students,\u00a0and staff to participate in masking up last week, but many opted out.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI ask you to reconsider, notifying your child\u2019s teacher of any change in your decision,\u201d Black said. \u201cIt is your right to choose. It is also my decision, my responsibility to protect all students, teachers and staff. As a result, a mask mandate will go into effect tomorrow, Tuesday … for all employees of The Schools of McKeel Academy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black said he would also be issuing a mask \u201copt out\u201d form for families of McKeel Academy of Technology, as well as non-bus riders of McKeel Academy Central.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose measures are necessary in the event that a temporary mask mandate also becomes inevitable for the students of MAT and MAC,\u201d he said. \u201cThese days are truly unprecedented. We would appreciate your support, flexibility and patience as we work to keep everyone safe and remain open.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Florida Department of Health website says, “The best way to prevent severe illness, hospitalization and death is to get vaccinated. You should also avoid being exposed to the virus (and avoid exposing other people). You can also prevent illness by practicing tried and true public health mitigation measures.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Schools of\u00a0McKeel\u00a0Academy have issued a mask mandate for all staff, effective Tuesday after 12\u00a0individuals\u00a0tested positive for COVID-19,\u00a0“our largest single-day rate\u00a0of infection since the onset of this global\u00a0pandemic.\u00a0 \u201cSouth McKeel has now… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[998],"class_list":["post-14149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-mckeel-academy-staff-must-mask-up"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}