School, county butt heads over COVID contact tracing

Turf battles over enforcing unpopular COVID-19 contact tracing requirements is causing confusion for some community members and parents.

At the September 27 Medford School Board meeting, board members voted to leave it up to parents if students who were contact traced for COVID-19 but who did not show any symptoms, would be kept home from school. The enforcement was wildly unpopular with many parents in the district who complained of their students missing excessive amounts of school due to repeated close contact quarantines.

On September 30, the Taylor County Health Department issued a formal order under Wisconsin statute 252.03 which states: “the local health officer shall promptly take all measures necessary to prevent, suppress and control communicable diseases” and do “what is reasonable and necessary for the prevention and suppression of diseases.” The order also cites Wisconsin Statute 252.19 stating “No person may knowingly and willfully take, aid in taking, advise or cause to be taken, a person who is infected or is suspected of being infected with a communicable diseases into any public place or conveyance where the infected person would expose any other person to danger of contracting the disease.”

The state law applies to a number of communicable diseases including whooping cough and measles as well as COVID-19. The law forces local health authorities to enforce measures including close contact quarantines in order to fight the spread of these diseases.

The formal health department order states that “the Medford Area School District shall not allow students that are designated as ‘quarantined’ by the Taylor County Health Department and/ or identified as close contacts on the Medford Area School District Contract Trace List access to any school building or any school activities until their end of quarantine.”

In addition to prompting a formal order, the school district’s change also increased expense for the county. Prior to the school board action, the school would pass along the contact tracing information to those identified. With the change, the county was forced to use priority mail to deliver the information to families at a cost of $ 7.93 per letter for those residing within the 54451 zip code and $26.53 per letter for those outside the 54451 zip code.

“It will cost taxpayers a lot more money,” said county health officer Patricia Krug to members of the county’s finance committee during an update during a meeting last week.

She said the additional staff time required would prevent them from being able to do other services the office provides. “I thought we had a great system in place,” Krug said.

She explained that it is not just COVID-19, but any of the diseases on the communicable diseases list that they have to follow these protocols by state law.

In response to the health department order, Medford school district administrator Pat Sullivan sent a message to all families in the district stating that the order no longer allows the school to let close contacts attend until their quarantine has expired.

“If we have students or staff who are quarantined show up and they refuse to leave, we will have to have law enforcement remove them,” Sullivan stated.

This statement drew a response from Taylor County Sheriff Larry Woebbeking who posted to the department’s social media page a statement raising questions about his department’s willingness to enforce the statutory order.

The statement reads: “Recently the Medford Area Public School released a statement regarding an order they received from the Taylor County Health Department. As a result of the Health Department order the School District is no longer allowing close contacts to positive cases attend school until after quarantine.

“In the School District’s public release they stated, “ If we have students or staff who are quarantined show up and they refuse to leave, we will have to have law enforcement remove them.”

“That statement was made without conferring with law enforcement. The School District like any other entity can call law enforcement, but they do not direct what enforcement action may or may not be taken. What type of action taken is at the sole discretion of that responding law enforcement agency.

“The order directs the School District to take action and they have avenues at their discretion to enforce that without law enforcement response and those avenues should be taken before any law enforcement involvement. Law enforcement has always and will continue to respond to incidents of disorderly conduct, trespassing, security issues and incidents of that nature at the school.

“The Taylor County Sheriff’s Office has worked very hard to be a trusted and community supported organization. Any child going to school should feel they can approach a uniformed officer to seek help.

“The statement made by the School District, I’m sure very much unintended that a law enforcement officer may remove a child from school sends a message that could cause some children to feel uneasy and even scared to approach a uniformed officer on school grounds. We have worked too hard for that unintended consequence.

“I encourage the community to work together peacefully and calmly through these difficult times to find common ground.”