Teachers unions want statewide policy on handling virus cases

As schools continue to report COVID-19 cases among staff and students, with some closing and others remaining open, a coalition of Connecticut’s teacher and paraprofessional unions asked the state

Wednesday to mandate how such situations should be handled at the local level.

“While we understand each school district is unique, the state must provide specific protocols that districts must follow when someone tests positive for the virus, including providing detailed information to parents and teachers,” Jeff Leake, president of the Connecticut Education Association, said in a written statement Wednesday. “The absence of consistent guidelines and adherence to protocols is evident in many districts, as is a lack of quality PPEand CDC-approved disinfecting and cleaning supplies. Without state mandates, transparency, and open communication, districts are jeopardizing the health and safety of entire school communities.”

Since the school year began, more than a dozen public schools in Connecticut have temporarily shut down because of COVID-19 cases. A number of schools have reported positive cases but decided to remain open, asking specific cohorts or classrooms to quarantine.

While state officials have provided recommendations and

guidelines for reopening schools, so far, they have refused to issue mandates, citing the individual nature of each district and the unique circumstances of every case. For the most part, local health officials and school administrators are left to decide when to close schools.

Still, Gov. Ned Lamont has repeatedly stated that schools — particularly at the elementary level — should not shut down because of a single case.

“I think it’s worth remembering that of all the schools that have been opened, some full-time, some parttime ... we’ve had 32 infections,” Lamont said earlier this week. “That’s 32 out of six or seven hundred thousand students and teachers and administrators so ... it’s a much lower positivity rate than we’re used to seeing in the general population right now.”

Lamont added there was “some confusion, but generally that means a class is being quarantined if there happens to be an infection. Maybe there have been 10 or 12 buildings [that have closed] out of all of the buildings across our whole school system, so I feel pretty good about where we’ve gone in the last two-plus weeks of K-12 education.”

But some school administrators and local health officials say they must close schools for at least day or two in order to effectively conduct contact tracing. Other districts point to earlier guidelines released by the state that included Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations to close schools for between twoandfivedays in the event of a positive case. Several superintendents have voiced concerns about a lack of clarity in state guideline and consistency among districts, a sentiment echoed in the unions’ statement.

“Our school districts need the state to provide a specific road map with tighter policies and protocols,” said Kristen Malloy-Scanlon, an elementary school teacher in West Havenwhoserves as president of the West Haven Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 1547.

Malloy- Scanlon also asked that parents be more involved in the process of handling positive COVID-19 cases, noting, “Local administrators should not indiscriminately make decisions behind closed doors that affect the lives of so many.”

In late August, the Connecticut Education Association and other members of the Board of Education Union Coalition warned some districts were not following health and safety protocols. Among the 13 “non-negotiable” core standards they asked state and district officials to implement was a request that parents and union leaders be informed if any staff members or students test positive for the virus, aggressive contact tracing measures be implemented and anyone deemed to have been possibly exposed quarantine for 14 days.

According to the state Department of Education, districts are expected to communicate this information to their school communities. The department said, per CDC guidelines, if any person who has been present in school has a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19, the local health department must be notified immediately, and districts should be ready to comply with requests for information and to assist with contact tracing.

If educators and staff membershaveto quarantine due to potential exposure to the virus, Leake asked that they be allowed to provide online learning to students or receive paid quarantine leave. The Connecticut Education Association, Connecticut’s largest teachers union, had previously called for a two-week delay in reopening schools so educators wouldhavetimeto improve remote learning. In a plan published as an alternative to the state’s guidelines, the union also called for weekly testing among staff and students.

In response to the unions’ statements, the Department of Education cited three documents provided by the state on how to handle COVID-19 scenarios, contact tracing and learning models. The department said the documents “rebuke any assertion that there is no statewide process for addressing COVID scenarios in the school setting.”

“The unions’ notion that the state’s guidance is not clear is surprising given the fact that state officials, at a minimum, are meeting with the unions twice a week and the addenda that address these issues have been made publicly available starting over a monthago,” the education department said in a statement Wednesday. “Just as importantly, the decisions to protect the health and safety of others depend on contact tracing results, and information from those who have been in close contact, derived from conversations between superintendents and their local health officials. The diversity of each school district has meant that, even while following the state’s guidance, unique local considerations have led them to different conclusions. However, that’s where these decisions need to be made – at local level, where this information is being gathered.”

Calling Connecticut’s reopening of schools a “success,” the department added, “None of this would be possible without our educators, school administrators, and support staff. They have been remarkable in their abilities to adapt to this unprecedented and challenging environment.”