Geithman said that exactly what action was issued against the family is confidential. The family, however, caused a “safety risk” to students, staff and the school community that easily could have spread further over the Thanksgiving break if the exposed families had not been informed, he said.
"I think it's important for them, which they do, to understand the gravity of their decision and the impact it had on our school, and how much worse it could have actually been," Geithman said. "When you look at the numbers, in this particular case, it could have been a lot worse."
Mary Jane Burke, Marin superintendent of schools, said the parents' actions compromised the health and well-being of others.
"It is obviously very unsettling to find ourselves in a situation with this type of a breach that affects the health and welfare of, frankly, an entire community. This is not just school-based," she said.
Some students in schools are immunocompromised, Burke said, or for other reasons may be particularly vulnerable should they be infected with COVID-19.
Of a parent sending their COVID-19-positive child to school, Burke said, "I consider that to be basic child endangerment."
The child tested positive for the virus during the week of Nov. 8, Geithman said. Both children continued to attend school the rest of that week and into the following week.
The child and their sibling, who later tested positive as well, are students in the district's Neil Cummins Elementary School in Corte Madera, a town in Marin County 15 miles north of San Francisco.
The parents did not notify the school of the positive test or return multiple calls from public health contact tracers, Geithman said.
"Our enforcement team is evaluating the circumstances and will respond accordingly," Marin County Public Health said in a statement. “Thankfully, this is the only known occurrence of a household knowingly sending a COVID-19 positive student to school.”
Willis, the county health officer, said when the school's principal spoke to the family, “they had cited that they were not clear on the protocol” to isolate the child after the positive test.
Willis said language barriers or economic factors — meaning the parents could not take time off from work when the kids needed to isolate at home — did not appear to be a factor for the family.
He also said it was "quite simple” for people to know not to send their children to school if they test positive for the virus.
"What I've heard from other parents is that they are definitely frustrated and there definitely was anger at the family that made this poor, or this lack of, judgment," Geithman, the superintendent, said.
On Nov. 18, public health officials contacted the school district after they noticed a discrepancy in records, according to Geithman.
“'We noticed you didn’t enter student X into the database'” of students with COVID-19, Geithman said district officials were told.
The district immediately contacted the families of students who were exposed and told them to report to the school for rapid testing the next morning.
A total of eight students tested positive: the original student, their sibling, three classmates with suspected school-based transmissions and three students with suspected household transmissions. None of the students experienced serious illness or had to be hospitalized.
About 75 students were exposed to the virus from the eight cases, the superintendent said. No staff members tested positive.
Schools have an indoor mask mandate.
“Had those children been unmasked, we would have seen a lot more transmission,” Willis said. “We depend on one another to prevent spread and this is kind of a stark and unfortunate lesson in what happens when we don’t follow the protocols.”
Geithman said he did not know whether the original student and their sibling had received any doses of the vaccine.
