MIAMI—On Sun­day after­noon, South Fork High School teacher Karen Rescini­ti field­ed a phone call from prin­ci­pal Jay Blavett. Some­time in the pre­vi­ous week, when thou­sands of stu­dents returned to pub­lic schools across Mar­tin Coun­ty, Flori­da, where South Fork is locat­ed, she had come in con­tact with a teen who was a pre­sumed pos­i­tive coro­n­avirus case, Rescini­ti recalled her boss telling her. “I knew it was com­ing,” Rescini­ti told The Dai­ly Beast. “But I was still shocked that a stu­dent in my class­room was actu­al­ly one of the first. I was like, ‘Here we go!’”Now Rescini­ti is among three teach­ers and 95 stu­dents from South Fork who have been placed into quar­an­tine based on the strong prob­a­bil­i­ty they had close inter­ac­tions with the teen in ques­tion. (Blavett did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to an email request­ing com­ment.) Look­ing to con­tain pos­si­ble out­breaks at Resciniti’s school, anoth­er high school, and three ele­men­tary schools, Mar­tin Coun­ty Pub­lic Schools offi­cials have quar­an­tined 292 stu­dents and 16 employ­ees since brick-and-mor­tar school­ing resumed last Tues­day, accord­ing to dis­trict spokes­woman Jen­nifer DeS­ha­zo. Two oth­er school dis­tricts in north Flori­da had also quar­an­tined a total of 10 stu­dents and teachers.The sit­u­a­tion might not seem out­ward­ly remark­able in a coun­try where two major colleges—UNC Chapel Hill and Notre Dame—have already halt­ed in-per­son class­es and thou­sands of pub­lic-school stu­dents have quick­ly been thrust into COVID-19 quar­an­tine. But Mar­tin Coun­ty Pub­lic Schools have earned a dra­mat­ic lead­ing role in Flori­da Gov. Ron DeSan­tis’ cam­paign for chil­dren, teenagers, and teach­ers to return to class­rooms, the lat­est chap­ter of his months-long push for the Sun­shine State to reopen despite dire warn­ings from pub­lic-health experts.During a brief­ing last Wednes­day, DeSan­tis relayed a con­ver­sa­tion he had with Mar­tin Coun­ty Super­in­ten­dent Lau­rie Gay­lord in which she sug­gest­ed reopen­ing pub­lic schools was a mis­sion akin to a Navy SEAL oper­a­tion. DeSan­tis, him­self a Navy vet­er­an, intoned, “Just as the SEALs sur­mount­ed obsta­cles to bring Osama bin Laden to jus­tice, so, too, would the Mar­tin Coun­ty school sys­tem find a way to pro­vide par­ents with a mean­ing­ful choice of in-per­son instruc­tion or con­tin­ued dis­tance learning—all in, all the time.”The prob­lem is that the already-high num­ber of quar­an­tined kids and employ­ees enter­ing just the sec­ond week of school could spell cas­cad­ing COVID-19 chaos—no mat­ter how cin­e­mat­ic the governor’s metaphor. After post­ing dai­ly pos­i­tiv­i­ty rates in the low sin­gle dig­its between Aug. 11 and Aug. 15, Mar­tin County’s dai­ly rate jumped to 12.2 per­cent on Mon­day. The coun­ty has tal­lied 3,967 total cas­es since the pan­dem­ic began. These Flori­da Coun­ties Are Feel­ing the Heat From DeSan­tis to Reopen School­sA few days after mak­ing them, DeSan­tis played down his remarks, and DeS­ha­zo told The Dai­ly Beast that Gaylord’s com­ments about the Navy SEALs were designed to inspire her exec­u­tive staff. “She shared with the Gov­er­nor that she had encour­aged our dis­trict lead­er­ship team to approach the reopen­ing of schools using the char­ac­ter­is­tics of lead­er­ship, risk mit­i­ga­tion, and dili­gence exhib­it­ed by SEALs as guid­ing prin­ci­ples,” DeS­ha­zo said. “Her intent was to hon­or the com­mit­ment and brav­ery dis­played by SEAL Team Six while also demon­strat­ing to the Gov­er­nor the district’s com­mit­ment to safe­ly reopen­ing schools.”But DeSan­tis crit­ics argued com­par­ing every­day learn­ing with wartime covert mis­sions was just a win­dow into how local and state lead­ers are unnec­es­sar­i­ly putting chil­dren, teach­ers, and school per­son­nel at risk. “Those com­ments are so tone-deaf,” said St. Peters­burg, Flori­da, physi­cian Mona Man­gat, who is also a mem­ber of the activist group Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Medicare. “Schools are being forced to make deci­sions that don’t put human life at the top of the algo­rithm. That scares me.” The governor’s press office did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to a request for com­ment. Rescini­ti, who is also pres­i­dent of Mar­tin County’s pub­lic schools teach­ers union, said the Navy SEALs com­par­isons were not well received by rank-and-file employ­ees, either. “Navy SEALs sign up for the most dan­ger­ous duty,” she said. “The anal­o­gy does not reflect what teach­ers do at all.”What’s more, exposed teach­ers are not exact­ly going into iso­la­tion at home. Rescinit­ti said she and exposed col­leagues who are not exhibit­ing symp­toms still have to report for work while exposed stu­dents do online class­es at home. The teach­ers in ques­tion are iso­lat­ed in class­rooms by them­selves: Rescinit­ti said that for the last two days, she has gone into a qui­et room to teach lessons via a computer.Her stu­dents who are not in quar­an­tine and are in the phys­i­cal class­room are taught by anoth­er South Fork teacher who takes on an addi­tion­al work­load, Rescinit­ti explained. “It’s very unfair to the oth­er teach­ers,” she said. “It’s a logis­ti­cal night­mare, beyond sil­ly and poor planning.”DeShazo said Mar­tin Coun­ty Pub­lic Schools con­sid­ers all dis­trict employ­ees to be essen­tial work­ers and that they may be asked to con­tin­ue work­ing to main­tain staffing for crit­i­cal ser­vices as long as they are not expe­ri­enc­ing any symp­toms of ill­ness. Sick Schoolkids Could Send Flori­da Off a Coro­n­avirus Cliff“If con­tin­u­ing to report to work because they are not ill, employ­ees will have their tem­per­a­ture checked upon arrival, keep a mask on, and remain social­ly dis­tanced at all times,” DeS­ha­zo said. “Employ­ees may not report to work if they are exhibit­ing symp­toms of ill­ness, await­ing test results, or have test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19.”However, the dis­trict does not test stu­dents or employ­ees for COVID-19, DeS­ha­zo said. The dis­trict only learns of pos­si­ble pos­i­tive cas­es from the state health department’s Mar­tin Coun­ty office, but all pub­lic schools employ­ees are eli­gi­ble for free test­ing with 24-hour results through a part­ner­ship with local hos­pi­tal, Cleve­land Clin­ic Mar­tin Health, DeS­ha­zo said. A health depart­ment spokesper­son did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to a request for com­ment. “The school dis­trict takes this very seri­ous­ly,” DeS­ha­zo said. “The health and safe­ty of stu­dents and staff is our top pri­or­i­ty.” For her part, Rescinit­ti said no one had checked her tem­per­a­ture when she went to work the last two days. “I am ner­vous,” she said. “I am high risk and com­pro­mised because I have asth­ma.” Read more at The Dai­ly Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Dai­ly Beast hereGet our top sto­ries in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Mem­ber­ship: Beast Inside goes deep­er on the sto­ries that mat­ter to you. Learn more.