City changes quarantine rules for schools as COVID cases rise
STAMFORD — Any time a student or teacher in a classroom comes down with COVID-19, that class will be immediately placed in quarantine until contact tracing has been completed.
That is the new edict written by Health Department Director Jennifer Calder that was sent to school nurses this week.
“Effective immediately, whenever there is a confirmed positive case in a student or school employee, the entire class as well as any staff associated with (the) case will be immediately quarantined for 14 days,” Calder wrote.
She continued, writing, “If during contact tracing, it is determined that no exposure
The new edict calls for all teachers and students in a classroom to quarantine when a positive case is discovered among them.
occurred or select individuals were (not) exposed, then the unexposed persons may return to school.”
Prior to the new policy, contact tracing would be performed in response to a positive test, but the person’s class would not automatically be affected.
Schools spokesperson Sharon Beadle said Calder’s direction to nurses was in response to the growing number of cases in the district.
“Given the increase of cases across the city, contact tracing may take longer than it has in the past,” Beadle said, in an emailed message. “Therefore, the Stamford (Department of Health ) wanted to clarify the practice.”
Beadle indicated most full-class quarantines would not last a full two weeks.
“Once complete, only those identified as a close contact would need to remain in quarantine,” Beadle wrote.
The city is in the process of adding more contact tracers, Beadle said, to help “expedite the process, given the increase of cases.”
Calder did not respond to a request for comment.
Many teachers and staff in school buildings have spoken out in recent weeks about concerns related to contact tracing and have pleaded with central office administrators to switch to fulltime remote learning.
Westhill High School Principal Michael Rinaldi this week said, with so many new cases of COVID-.19 popping up in recent weeks, contacting everyone associated with each case before school the following day will become virtually impossible.
“If now we need to quarantine an entire group of students or adults because we weren’t able to finish contact tracing, the only way to do that effectively and safely is to have the school go remote the following day,” Rinaldi said.
Diane Phanos, president of the Stamford Education Association teachers union, said she did not receive any information about Calder’s new directive.
“I’m concerned that this is a change in protocol and I did not receive it,” she said.
Phanos contested Beadle’s description that Calder’s edict was to “clarify the practice.”
“Forget clarifying,” Phanos said. “They’re changing the procedure.”
She said teachers have told her about multiple instances this semester in which a student was out with COVID-19 but no one else in a classroom was told to quarantine.
“Many teachers and I were concerned that you could have a positive case and no one else was being told to quarantine,” Phanos said. “They started to question, ‘How could that be?’”
Phanos said teacher concerns across the district are mounting, This week, multiple Stamford High School teachers sent messages to the Board of Education pleading with them to close schools and continue education remotely.
“I’m at the point where I am inundated with teacher concerns,” Phanos said. “I think it’s time to go full remote for a period of time.”
Ruth-Terry Walden, a Westhill teacher, said the new quarantine protocol is a sign that cases are too much to handle for the school district.
“The actual change in protocol clearly and convincingly demonstrates the severity of our present COVID-19 situation,” she said.