Back-in-class ISDs see start as promising

For the first Houston-area school districts to resume in-person classes, the early results for COVID-19 on campus are in: so far, mostly so good.

Eight districts that brought children back to schools in August are reporting sporadic known cases of students and staff testing positive for COVID-19, but they are avoiding the kind of outbreaks that stoked the most fear headed into the new school year.

The preliminary data offer signs of hope that many schools, under the right conditions, can hold face-to-face instruction and avoid widespread transmission of the deadly novel coronavirus within a campus.

With three to four weeks in the books,

those districts reported about 80 active COVID-19 cases as of Friday among the roughly 112,000 students and 29,000 staff members regularly traveling to campuses. While the source of those infections is not known, none of the eight districts are reporting several active cases at a single campus.

Most districts consider a case active if an individual spent time on district premises, later tested positive for COVID-19 and remains in recovery.

“We really do feel good about where we are,” said Mike Rockwood, deputy superintendent of administrative services and leadership development in Lamar CISD, which reported about 20 active cases this week in a district with 16,000 oncampus students and 5,000-plus staff members.

“I think everyone would be concerned if there are multiple cases popping up over a campus because we weren’t able to control the spread of COVID-19. But in our review of all our data and instances, we feel like individuals contracted the case somewhere else.”

Educators, medical experts and advocates caution the data remains preliminary, for multiple reasons.

Cases of COVID-19 could grow exponentially in the coming weeks if transmission is occurring on campuses. The prevalence of asymptomatic cases could lead to an undercount of COVID-19 in school buildings.

Michael Chang, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the UTHealth McGovern Medical School, said COVID-19 spread among students and staff will become more clear in the next few weeks, though rapid outbreaks have occurred in settings with large gatherings of children.

“Particularly in high school and maybe middle school, I think you’d anticipate a relatively quick signal and fast outbreak,” Chang said. “Not too many districts have had a lot of faceto-face students for that long yet. It might be a little early, especially if we have asymptomatic kids.”

The possibility of a school-based outbreak also could increase as more districts resume in-person classes.

Several districts that serve large numbers of Black, Hispanic and lowerincome families — who are testing positive for COVID-19 and dying from the disease at higher rates than wealthier and white families — are just starting face-to-face classes or returning to campuses in the coming weeks.

Houston ISD, the region’s largest school district, is tentatively scheduled to offer in-person classes beginning Oct. 19.

Still, the lack of immediate outbreaks suggests the use of masks, social distancing and hand-washing could be helping to limit the spread on campuses.

“I firmly believe we can open up schools pretty safely,” said Jeffrey Starke, a professor of pediatrics who specializes in infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine. “Is it going to be perfect? No. Are there going to be cases? Sure. But I think the impact on the community can be minimal if we do it safely.”

Public school districts across the state reported about 1,000 new positive cases among students and 800 new positive cases among staff during the week of Labor Day, according to data compiled by the Texas Education Agency.

State officials estimated about 1.1 million students were on district premises during the week of Labor Day. The TEA did not report an estimated number of employees working on school grounds, but they noted that public districts employed about 800,000 people in 2019-20.

As the Houston area’s outbreak of COVID-19 waned in recent weeks, education leaders across the region debated when and how to bring children back onto campuses for in-person classes.

Some local health officials, including leaders of Harris and Montgomery counties, advised that schools should stay onlineonly through at least Labor Day, arguing community transmission rates remained too high. Reports about blossoming outbreaks at a handful of reopened schools and many college campuses also stoked worries about a premature return.

In the end, the leaders of eight local districts with at least 5,000 students chose to restart in late August: Alvin, Brazosport, Clear Creek, Dickinson, Friendswood, Humble and Pearland ISDs, as well as Lamar CISD. Together, the districts enrolled about 200,000 students, roughly 40 percent of whom chose to remain in online-only classes.

The two districts that brought back students on Aug. 24, Humble and Lamar, both reported the highest number of cases and among the most students returning to school buildings. Humble had about 25,000 students and staff on campus, with middle and high schoolers splitting their days between inperson and virtual classes, while Lamar reported about 21,500 on campus every school day.

Humble officials said the district’s 24 active cases are spread across 16 campuses. The district’s school board voted earlier this month to speed up its full-time return of middle and high school students, despite wariness among some staff members.

“These have mostly been one-off cases, sometimes two kids who were together over the weekend,” Humble Superintendent Elizabeth Fagen said. “I feel like we’ve taken this slow, phased-in approach, and the data seem to be pretty positive as far as cases.”

Rainey Webster, the mother of a freshman and junior attending in-person classes at Lamar’s Foster High School, said the district’s number of active COVID-19 cases through four weeks left her encouraged. Foster reported one active case involving a student as of Friday.

“I think it has turned out better than I expected,” Webster said. “I expected there to be more cases than the one or two that popped up. Not because of the district’s plan, but because they’re children. It lets me know their plan and policies are effective.”

Across the Houston region, concerns remain about the potential for outbreaks.

Nicole Hill, a digital organizer for the Texas American Federation of Teachers, said the union regularly receives messages from staff members reporting poor preparation and safety guideline enforcement. Hill helps administer a crowdsourcing tool that tracks COVID-19 cases tied to campuses.

“A lot of people have been reporting safety violations: I haven’t been given (personal protective equipment), I’ve been given only one mask, nobody is enforcing social distancing,” Hill said. “We’re not seeing huge numbers of cases at this point, but it’s still very early in the school year. What are we going to see two to three weeks from now?”

Starke, the pediatrics professor, said he believes it is “never too early to look at and have data,” adding that the best information on COVID-19 in schools “is going to come in the next month or so.” He warned that the arrival of cold and flu season starting later in the fall could result in more students and staff on-campus with COVID-19.

“This is a grand experiment,” Starke said. “And in a couple months, we’re going to have a pretty good idea of the answers.”