Palm Lake Elementary sends 70 students, staff home after COVID cases

Seventy students and staff at Palm Lake Elementary School must be off campus and work online for two weeks after three school employees tested positive for coronavirus, Orange County Public Schools said Thursday.

The students and staff impacted are all in the autism spectrum disorder unit at the school in southwest Orange County. All 70 -- 41 students and 29 staff -- are in quarantine, according to the school district’s COVID-19 dashboard.

The announcement about Palm Lake comes on the heels of the district announcing Wednesday that Timber Creek High School in east Orange was shutting down for two weeks because of 14 positive cases that required 254 students and staff to quarantine.

Across the 202 OCPS campuses, 708 people, 625 of them students, are now in quarantine, according to the dashboard updated Wednesday night.

Those in quarantine include 40 people at Boone High School, 38 at Avalon Elementary School and 23 at Dr. Phillips High School.

The cases at Avalon Elementary in east Orange on Oct. 13 prompted the district to have all kindergarten, second and fourth grade students temporarily switch to online learning until Oct. 26.

Like Timber Creek, Olympia and West Orange high schools also have temporarily closed but both have since re-opened their campuses. West Orange, however, currently has 24 students quarantined, based on four new positive cases this month.

Timber Creek will be closed until Nov. 5.

lpostal@orlandosentinel.com

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