Local school chiefs are being urged not to press the panic button and arbitrarily close schools despite increasing levels of COVID-19 in the community.
In a message jointly signed by Commissioner of Education Miguel Cardona and Acting Department of Health Commissioner Deidre Gifford, school superintendents were told to follow protocols in place and allow students to access in-person schooling for as long as possible.
As cases of COVID-19 push many communities in the state back into the red zone, several school districts have pulled back on in-person learning.
Shelton announced it was going fully remote until January.
Bridgeport this week put elementary schools on a so-called hybrid schedule, limiting in-school learning for most students to two days a week.
And on Thursday, Ansonia announced it is going fully remote at the end of the school day Friday.
“We anticipate holding classes in a remote setting until Jan. 18, 2021. We will reassess our model based on our 14-day rolling average and our ability to staff our buildings. We will notify you as early as possible if we need to extend remote learning and/or when we need to transition back to in-person instruction,” a message to the school community reads.
“Safely staffing buildings is becoming impossible,” said Ansonia Schools Superintendent Joseph DiBacco. “We have no subs, colleges have pulled back their interns. When a staff member needs to quarantine for 14 days and cannot test out of quarantine — that impacts my teaching staff dramatically.”
Ansonia, at 6.2 miles, is small but densely populated.
“We did our absolute best to stay open as long as possible. Now it is time to reassess and regroup as we move into another surge of COVID,” DiBacco said.
In Shelton, 38 students and staff members have tested positive for the virus since in-person classes resumed in September.
Quarantine protocols, meanwhile, have sidelined many others. On Monday, it was reported that five Shelton School employees tested positive for COVID-19, 35 needed to quarantine, six were waiting for test results, 14 were out on long-term leave and 23 were out for other reasons.
That left the district without enough substitutes to fill the gaps, according to Acting Schools Superintendent Beth Smith.
Asked if the state memo was pointing to Shelton, Smith would only highlight a sentence that said “school districts may have to move to a remote model in the upcoming weeks and months due to the unique circumstances in the district, such as staffing.”
In Bridgeport, Schools Superintendent Michael Testani said the memo was a reminder to everyone that schools can be kept open safely for in-person learning.
Cardona and Gifford’s message to school districts goes on to say their departments are closely monitoring the community spread of COVID-19, as well as school-related cases of COVID-19.
“The mitigation strategies we have put in place (masks, distancing, cleaning and hygiene, ventilation, cohorting, etc.) are working,” they wrote. “We are not seeing sustained person-to-person transmission of COVID-19 in schools or outbreaks of COVID-19 in schools, despite increasing levels of COVID-19 in the community.”
They do not recommend that districts close for a prolonged period of time, the letter specifies.
“In-person education is too important for our children to disrupt their education further, unless and until local conditions specifically dictate the need to do so,” Cardona and Gifford wrote, acknowledging that there may ultimately be a return to a full-remote learning model in the coming months and weeks based on the pandemic.
The ‘stay the course’ message for schools is one Gov. Ned Lamont has reiterated during recent press briefings to report on surging COVID-19 cases statewide. The daily positivity rate statewide was 4.76 percent as of Wednesday. Connecticut is now averaging more than 1,000 new cases a day.
“We are doing everything we can to keep our schools open,” Lamont said.
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November 13, 2020 at 04:11AM
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School districts told to stay the course as COVID cases rise; some local districts say it’s too late - CTPost
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