DESOTO COUNTY, Miss — DeSoto County Schools parents are demanding transparency from the district. Parents like Brandi Bradley and Lekista Flurry question if district officials have their kids' best interests in mind.
"They are trying to go back to a normal school year, and it's anything but normal," Bradley said.
"I can have a list of concerns but I know they are not listening to us," Flurry said.
Both parents have children in the DeSoto County Schools District. They are just some of the parents saying they feel out of the loop when it comes to their kid's safety. Bradley said by the fourth day of school she, "received an email on the 10, the 12 and the 13 all in separate emails stating a child in one of my children classes have tested positive COVID."
But the problem is the email doesn't specify which of her child may have been exposed to the virus.
"I don't know which class it was or I don't know which child it was then I don't know how to protect her, my younger daughter, from the virus," Bradley said.
Bradley's youngest daughter is four and can't get the vaccine. Bradley also said she and her husband both suffer from diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart problems.
"It's kind of like a slippery slope here just trying to keep my family safe and still trying to go with what the district wants as far as back having kids back in class because they are not even offering any kind of virtual classes for the students," she said.
That leads to the parent's next frustration with the district's lack of communication. Families have to pay a one-time technology fee of either $12 or $25 and the parents we spoke with said they were not given an explanation.
"It's very contradicting to be telling us to pay a technology fee when we don't have the option of virtual learning," Flurry said.
We've reached out to DeSoto County Schools and in their statement, they wrote in part, "The device support is used to help offset the cost of hardware, software, and certain repairs." The district’s spokesperson also said parents can reach out to their child’s schools to get specific information relating to COVID cases and technology fees. Their statement did not answer our question asking if the tech fee is mandatory and if the district is preparing to return to virtual learning.
"The miscommunication and the not directly telling us what is going on is a problem," Flurry said.