Sarah Bowman reports:
Three weeks after Beaufort County School District teachers traveled to West Africa, several school board members and parents question the way the district handled public information about Ebola concerns.
[…]
Board of Education member JoAnn Orischak said balancing public knowledge and employee privacy is difficult.
“The district would never be able to tell you if they tested someone, because of all the guidelines surrounding medical privacy,” she said. “But I want to ask, what would have been the harm in acknowledging they were there, while not providing any identifiable information?”
School board member Jim Beckert raised similar questions. He said he was surprised by the casual manner in which Moss raised the issue of Ebola and the procedures to address it in a public setting, immediately after a board workshop in early August.
Beckert acknowledged the need to protect employee privacy, but said he also understands the public’s need for information pertaining to public health.
Read more on The Beaufort Gazette.