New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
COVID-19 case could be ‘strong warning’ for schools
CT Education Association head says stronger protocols needed
NORWALK — A staff member testing positive with the coronavirus on the second day of in-person summer school should serve as a “strong warning” for what districts will face in the fall, the head of the state’s largest education lobbying group said Friday.
In-person summer school classes were suspended this week at Norwalk High School, where a person who was inside the building on Monday tested positive for COVID-19 the next day.
About six people who came in close contact with the person, who was identified by a state Department of Education official as a staff member of the school district, were asked to quarantine for 14 days and consult their doctor about getting tested. The school has been deep cleaned since being closed on Wednesday and is expected to reopen for summer school on Monday, district officials said.
“Even when guidelines are being followed, problems will arise,” said Don Williams, executive director of the Connecticut Education Association. “When students and staff wind up with the virus, we have to have strong protocols in place or else we’ll repeat what happened in the summer program in Norwalk, which is to say we’ll see schools and districts closing down.”
Last month, Gov. Ned Lamont announced Connecticut students will return to the classrooms in the fall and the state provided strict guidelines for districts holding in-person summer sessions.
While isolated, the Norwalk COVID-19 case and how it’s handled could sway how Connecticut students return to school in the fall, Lamont said Friday.
“That’s why we’ve configured the schools around different cohorts, so one fifth-grade class doesn’t hang out with everybody else in the middle school,” Lamont said, speaking to reporters after an event in Fairfield. “And that’s so if there is an infection, it’s limited to just those 25 kids, and we can quarantine them accordingly. Obviously, I think what happened at the Norwalk summer school is that infection ended up meaning the school itself had to be closed down.
We’re going to be very careful about that.”
Frank Costanzo, chief of operations for Norwalk Public Schools, said the infected person passed a health screening and temperature check before entering the building Monday and was asymptomatic during the first day of summer classes.
The person began experiencing symptoms that evening and did not return to the school on Tuesday, Costanzo said. The person went to a doctor that day and tested positive for the coronavirus, Costanzo said.
Costanzo could not say exactly how many people were asked to quarantine, but estimated it was about a half dozen. The school was closed for five days to be cleaned and classes were moved online, although a district spokeswoman could not say how many classes or the number of students who were affected.
“This is the scenario that was carefully considered and prepared for in the formulation of the state’s Summer School Rules for our K-12 schools,” the state DOE said in a statement in response to Hearst Connecticut Media questions about the Norwalk case. “Administrators took all of the proper steps like notifying the local health department, and having the schoolhouse ready for reopening next week. Protocols have been followed, and a remote learning plan was in place for students, which is exactly what is supposed to happen. Schools must be flexible when it comes to the impact of COVID-19, and ensuring their plans for remote learning are ready to be utilized on a moment’s notice is critical.”
Williams said the state needs to establish stronger protocols by the fall around testing, contact tracing and monitoring to ensure a quick response if someone does experience symptoms.
“The cohort concept could be part of the solution, but most folks are going to come into contact with other individuals,” he said. “We need to have those protocols so we can keep folks safe.”
Monitoring summer school
Peter Yazbak, director of communications for the state DOE, said feedback will be collected later this month from superintendents of school districts offering in-person summer classes that will be used to help guide best practices for the fall. Yazbak did not provide a list of districts offering in-person summer classes.
The state DOE will also use the summer school data to gauge participation rates for the fall. Connecticut families have the option to continue virtual learning instead of returning to the classroom in September.
In Norwalk, a hybrid summer school program was developed with a combination of in-person and virtual learning based on feedback from a survey sent to parents.
According to the district, 710 of the 1,161 students in kindergarten through eighth grade enrolled in summer school are doing the classes completely at home. There are 302 students participating in only face-to-face instruction and 149 doing a combination of inperson and remote learning. The district did not provide information about high school students.
The confirmed COVID case isn’t the only challenge facing summer school programs.
Mary Yordon, president of the Norwalk Federation of Teachers and vice president of the American Federation of Teachers’ Connecticut
chapter, said masks have been an issue in the classrooms. Yordon said it’s been difficult for teachers to hear students through the masks. She said many students, despite their best efforts, also struggle to keep their masks on.
These issues and needing to keep a 6-foot buffer for social distancing have created new challenges in addition to ongoing issues with distance learning, she said.
“With masks on, it’s very hard to conduct the kind of instruction we’re used to,” Yordon said. “We already knew how to teach in a classroom. I’m hearing reports from in-person teachers (from summer school) that this is a whole new way of instruction because of the masks. We can’t do a lot of things we want to do. This is a third way of learning our jobs and it’s scary.”
Norwalk is one of the few districts in the state offering inperson summer school with others opting to only have distance learning.
“The associate superintendents worked in conjunction with the local health department and determined that for the health and safety of students and staff, we would offer a remote summer school program,” said Tamu Lucero, superintendent of Stamford Public Schools. “We will continue these discussions and determine if it might be safe to offer in-person summer opportunities in late July or early August.”
Norwalk Mayor Harry Rilling said the city is prepared to pull back on in-person summer school if it poses a risk to spreading the coronavirus.
Rilling initially opposed the idea when the district announced in early June that in-person summer school was an option, but changed his stance once he reviewed the plan.
“We’re watching summer school,” Rilling said. “It can be an indicator of our full session back in September and how we move forward with that, I think not only in Norwalk but statewide. Any summer school or in-school session will be monitored closely to see if we can follow them safely.”
Costanzo previously said Norwalk opted for in-person summer school classes because of the benefit face-to-face instruction has for younger students.
“We’re an Alliance District and are required to provide reading and math support to students who don't meet local benchmarks,” he said. “There’s a lot of research that suggests a real teacher makes a world of difference for students in that age group . ... Given the stage in their psychological development, it makes good sense to have them with a live teacher every day to practice learning to read. Many of our students have not had a quality learning experience at home without a certified teacher to work with them.”
In Regional School District 12, which serves Washington, Roxbury and Bridgewater in Litchfield County, about 20 students are attending in-person summer school classes. Superintendent Megan Bennett said the district is offering in-person summer school along with about half the other districts in the area because some services cannot be provided virtually.
Bennett also said the decision for in-person summer school should be based on location. In Litchfield County, there were
1,447 confirmed cases of the coronavirus as of Friday. Fairfield County had 16,265 cases.
“So far, it’s going really, really well,” Bennett said. “It’s a Herculean effort.”
Staff writers Ken Dixon and Katrina Koerting contributed to this story.