Denton County passes, for now, on issuing orders for schools on COVID-19

Denton County, unlike Tarrant or Dallas counties, is not ready to issue any orders or give recommendations to its school districts.

The Denton County Health Director said Tuesday the COVID-19 case numbers for the county are in better shape than Dallas and Tarrant.

Commissioners said they have concerns about who actually has the authority to order school districts to close their campuses. The county health authority can do that with a control order, but after consulting with school superintendents, health director seems to favor recommendations instead.

MORE: Coronavirus coverage

“We've made recommendations instead of a control order for classrooms, for instance, with pertussis or classrooms with chicken pox, we would recommend to quarantine the class or quarantine the child or isolate the infected child, that's very common for public health,” said Dr. Matt Richardson, Denton County Health Director.

Two big Denton County school districts, Lewisville ISD and Denton ISD, are planning to start on-campus instruction in late August.

The health director says there is still time for him track the case numbers before making any announcements.

RELATED: Interactive map of Texas COVID-19 cases

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Pediatric infectious disease expert explains how COVID-19 impacts children

With school starting soon, many parents are wondering whether they should send their kids back into the classroom. Dr. Jeffrey Kahn is the chief of infectious diseases at Children's Health as well as a professor at UT Southwestern. He talks about what he's seen and what the data shows when it comes to kids and COVID-19.