GHS teachers angry over slow COVID notice
Four school administrators were put in quarantine this week
GREENWICH — The Greenwich teachers’ union is angry at the district’s delay this week in notifying teachers, students and the Greenwich High community that the school’s principal and other administrators and staff members were in quarantine, and one administrator had tested positive for COVID-19.
Principal Ralph Mayo and other administrators and staff members were told to quarantine over the weekend starting on Saturday, Board of Education Communications Liaison Jonathan Supranowitz.
But Carol Sutton, president of the Greenwich Education Association, said teachers and the school community were not formally told about the quarantine, and positive test, until Tuesday afternoon.
Many teachers inquired about Mayo’s absence Monday, but there had been no official communication from the district, she said.
Tuesday morning, around 8:30 a.m., when Sutton contacted Superintendent of Schools Toni Jones to ask whether a health alert would be sent, as has been common practice when cases are reported, the union president said she was told the lack of communication had been an oversight and that an alert would be sent out shortly.
“We were surprised and dismayed by the delay in reporting,” Sutton said Wednesday. “Considering the issue involved the principal of the school, I don’t understand how the health alert could’ve been overlooked. That sending the health alert wasn’t the highest priority and worthy of confirmation by the superintendent is appalling.”
The official communication came from the district Tuesday afternoon at about 2 p.m.
Supranowitz reiterated Wednesday that the failure to send a health alert was merely an oversight.
“We are very sorry and it is really unfortunate that it happened,” Supranowitz said. “But the reality is that we’ve been really diligent about sending health alerts. We’re really trying our best to be transparent.”
Mayo sent out an email to Greenwich High staff Wednesday accepting responsibility for the miscommunication. He also said he’d been copied on several emails that had been sent by staff to the superintendent which he felt were “inappropriate.”
“Let me be perfectly clear, there was a miscommunication over the weekend and no one was trying to cover anything up,” Mayo said. “I assumed that the district was putting something out about the quarantine of several of our administrative staff. The District Offices thought that I was communicating with the high school staff. I am taking full responsibility for this error as the building principal. I hope that you can understand that a mistake was made and we were not trying to hide the fact that members of the Leadership team were quarantined.”
Most, if not all, health alerts regarding positive cases and quarantines at Greenwich High since the start of the semester have been sent by Jones and the district’s Head of Nursing Mary Keller. The district declined to comment as to why that would have changed in this instance. Mayo did not respond to a request for comment.
According to the health alert distributed by the district Tuesday afternoon, there are 10 total Greenwich High staff members that have had to quarantine since last Wednesday, four of whom are administrators, including Mayo. Three are staff members and three are teachers. One of the administrators tested positive.
Sutton and teachers union members have been vocal since the start of the year about their concerns regarding health and safety in the schools and the district’s communication about the virus. Teachers also have described confusion over contact tracing protocols.
In October, the district revamped its weekly COVID-19 tracker — which lists total cases, schools affected and other relevant information — and began updating the numbers Tuesday and Friday, as opposed to just Friday, as they had at the start of school.
But teachers have continued to question the district’s practices. Most notably, in an October statement issued by the GEA, the union described the schools’ contact tracing program as a “mystery,” saying “there does not seem to be a standard approach to notification of the staff and families when there is a positive test or quarantine.”
The latest incident at Greenwich High only exacerbates that confusion, Sutton said.
“A 48 hour delay in failing to follow protocols is appalling,” Sutton said. “It has contributed to distrust of the central office administration at a time when we have to trust the process. There are too many unknowns with this virus to not get it right.”
Charles Costello, a GEA buildin representative and English teacher at the high school, said he believes it’s incumbent on the district to notify its staff, students and families when administrators are out of the building.
“I can’t speak to why they didn’t send (a health alert) or what went into that decision,” Costello said. “What I can speak to is what is led to. And what it led to was a lot of anger and distrust.”
Despite the absence of a formal announcement, it’s not easy to hide missing administrators, Costello said. As teachers, staff and students returned to school Monday, rumors started to circulate, causing unease, according to science teacher Mario Buono and English teacher Laura Brill.
Buono said the “rumor mill” started churning Monday morning but actual information came in “dribs and drabs” — which, she said, has happened before. Brill said the dearth of communication contributed to a feeling of helplessness.
“We don’t have a lot of control, so we’re depending on administration, our superintendent, to share information to us that is pertinent and that impacts us,” Brill said. “And to not know that the principal of our building had been put on quarantine was very disconcerting to myself and to other people. If that is not being communicated ... what else is being withheld from us?”
Mayo did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Dave Walko, head of Clark House at Greenwich High and co-president of the district’s administrator’s union, the Greenwich Organization of School Administrators (GOSA). Walko’s GOSA co-president and North Mianus School Principal Angela Schmidt declined to comment.
Costello said he hoped for improved communication from the district moving forward.
“I really think it’s in the district’s best interest to communicate more effectively, more openly and more immediately than they did,” Costello said.