St. Ray’s principal clears the air on virus
PAWTUCKET – As a veteran Air Force fighter pilot, Daniel Richard has been in war zones where he’s had to make quick decisions in a manner of seconds. With 22 years of service, from 1983 to 2005, Richard served during some of the most tumultuous battles in United States history, from Desert Storm through the aftermath of 9/11.
But while he’s had preparation for his share of conflicts, there have been few quite like the one he and his school have endured for the past week.
Richard is the principal at Saint Raphael Academy, a Pawtucket-based Catholic high school which in recent days has become the de facto epicenter of Rhode Island’s first confirmed cases of coronavirus, the virus which has infected close to 100,000 people and killed more than 3,300 globally.
Like a pilot through combat, Richard has had to carefully navigate the past few days as faculty members and a student have been among those cases. His school has been closed initially for two days, then for a week, and now for a full two weeks as cleanings commenced and quarantines are ongoing.
“This has been really challenging because there’s a lot of different layers to it,” Richard said. “But I’ve been very blessed to have a team in here that’s volunteered to come in here … that have worked tirelessly with me over the last five days, to make sure that we prioritize what was important to our school community, and they’ve really been the ones carrying the bucket of water up the hill.”
In a sit-down interview with The Times on Thursday afternoon, Richard explained the details of the high school’s European vacation over February break and how it led to multiple cases of coronavirus in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts and about 200 people being placed into quarantine across the state.
A group of 38 students and adults – among them 28 from Saint Rays – flew out of Boston on Feb. 14. One of the earlier stops on their trek across the continent was Italy, where the vacationers spent a single day.
“At that point, there wasn’t anything going on in Italy, it was not the hotbed it became,” he said. “It wasn’t until the end of February that the CDC put out anything about not traveling there.”
The students and staff returned home on Feb. 22. Since then, Italy has become one of the countries most affected by coronavirus, as more than 3,000 people have been infected and more than 140 people there have died.
One Saint Rays staff member – a man in his 40s – was not feeling well prior to going on the trip and continued feeling ill after returning stateside. He hadn’t been in school after returning from Italy and had no contact with the school or the students, Richard said. But once Richard received information that the staffer was being tested for coronavirus, he notified the Rhode Island Department of Health within hours, he said.
“From that moment on, we’ve been in total compliance with everything the Rhode Island Department of Health has given us. I’ve followed all policies and protocols,” he said.
“There was no one in this community that thought for a second that the individual is going to end up with coronavirus. At that time, there had been zero cases in the United States from Italy, it wasn’t presumed that was going to be the outcome,” Richard said. “That all changed Saturday evening at about 6 o’clock when I was notified that individual had tested positive.”
Since then, Richard said, he and fellow Saint Rays staffers have worked aroundthe-clock to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the school and state community.
But in that time frame, another two members of the Saint Rays community have fallen ill with coronavirus. A teenage student and a teacher – identified as a Massachusetts woman in her 20s – have been confirmed to have the virus or presumed positive for the virus, according to reports from RIDOH.
The student was in school for “several days” between returning from Italy and falling ill, while the faculty member taught for three days at school. That is what led to the quarantining of 130 students until March 12 and the decision to close the academy and have online classes next week.
“Initially, I thought it was prudent to take two days,” Richard recalled. “We were instructing our students virtually for Monday and Tuesday, but when the second case came out, the Department of Health stated that they would like us to close for the entire week. The students are still learning, they have virtual instructions and the teachers are grading papers, but the school currently does not have any students coming.” Following the Massachusetts woman’s presumed positive case on Tuesday, the Rhode Island Department of Health “asked us for the 130 names and said these individuals have to be self-quarantined. I thought it would be better to instruct all of the students virtually rather than three-quarters of them … At no time did Rhode Island Department of Health tell us that we had to close that week. We’re very good at virtual learning, the students are experienced in it, as are the faculty. It’s not something that’s new to us,” he said.
Roughly 550 students attend Saint Raphael Academy, meaning almost a quarter of the student body were in contact with the faculty member.
“The other reason we opted to virtually instruct is that it resets our two weeks. Fourteen days is the incubation time period. The last time we’re in school is the 28th, when we go back on the 16th of March, the entire community has had two weeks,” he explained. “We also thought it would be a smart thing to do, not to have our students congregate and then see what happens when they went out into the state of Rhode Island. So it was done with a view of precaution.”
Alterations to how the students are educated aren’t the only changes ongoing at Saint Rays. School officials on Wednesday announced that a planned trip to Spain over April break would be canceled.
“It just makes sense,” Richard said. “The last thing we ever want to do, after this kind of scare, now it’s on everybody’s radar … It’s just a risk we’re not willing to take.”
As for the interactions he’s had with Gov. Gina M. Raimondo and officials from RIDOH, Richard said he continues to be impressed by their leadership and ongoing teamwork.
“Love the governor, she’s said some wonderful things about our school, she called our self-quarantined students ‘unsung heroes.’ Department of Health has been on top of it the whole time, we’ve tried to be in lock step with what they’ve issued out for procedures and protocols,” he said. “I’ve been very impressed by all the different agencies.”