New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
With 120+ quarantining, schools step up remote plans
NEW HAVEN — With at least 124 people connected to the city school district quarantining due to COVID-19, the district is working on on a plan “to provide some teaching time to those kids after school,” schools spokesman Justin Harmon said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, an additional four people associated with the district — one at Wexler Grant School, two at Fair Haven School and one at Celentano BioTech, Health and Medical Magnet School — were confirmed to have COVID-19 Wednesday.
Contract tracing identified six
additional individuals at Fair Haven who will quarantine due to exposure to the confirmed case, plus six more who were exposed at Celentano, Harmon said in a release. Two individuals who were exposed to the case at Wexler will quarantine.
This was the second case confirmed at Wexler Grant.
The latest case brings the number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 after the school year began to 19, with a total of 39 cases including those who never came to school, then quarantined and subsequently were found to be infected, said Harmon.
Superintendent of Schools Iline Tracey said she expected that there would be new cases when schools reopened for in-person instruction, and the number of cases so far is no surprise.
“We expected these things to happen,” Tracey said. “When we opened, we knew we would not be so lucky to not have these things happen.”
With a number of people out, “We’re working on a plan to have certified teachers, you know, our regular teachers, work with our students” who are stuck at home either while quarantining or after testing positive for COVID-19, Tracey said.
Director of Health Maritza Bond said that with 41 schools in the New Haven Public Schools system, “I do not have any major concerns at this juncture.”
She added, however, that “all of the contract tracing and all of the mitigation strategies are handled by the Board of Ed.”
School board member Darnell Goldson said he was worried both about the number of cases and what he perceives to be the lack of a cohesive plan.
“I’m certainly becoming concerned by the number of cases that are being reported every day,” Goldson said. “I just don’t understand why we’d be, after a week and a half of school, still working on a plan for kids when they’re stuck at home. The plan should have been in place on the day school started.
“They just continue to do the same thing over and over again, and that’s a little frustrating,” he said.
“It seems like we’re being more reactive than proactive, and that concerns me,” Goldson said. “.. .Our kids are already behind ... and I hope they get it together — cause they spent all summer spending that money ... and apparently not putting a plan together for how to teach” children once they are confined to their homes, he said.
Asked what the school district is doing to prevent COVID-19 from spreading further within the system, Harmon said, “We are focusing on ensuring students wear masks properly; on contract tracing to quarantine where necessary; on providing instruction to students who are quarantined, and on maintaining good building hygiene.”
Currently, students out on quarantine or with COVID are taught via “an online system wherein teachers post material that kids need to work on online,” Harmon said.
The plan to provide afterschool teaching time to students who aren’t in school would supplement that, he said.
“We strongly believe that kids are better off to be in school, so masking is very important,” Harmon said. In addition, “We do very thorough cleanings” and “we try to be really careful about contract tracing.”
“We’re observing all the protocols that scientists tell us make a difference ... paying attention to masking,” he said. “We’re encouraging vaccinations for students over the age of 12” and “we’re doing a good job of cleaning in all the schools.”
Meanwhile, the district is working with its bus company, First Student, to try to hire more bus drivers.
“Last week we had a couple of instances where the buses were later” than people would have liked, Harmon said. “We’ve had a conversation with our transportation provider yesterday and they said that the truth is ... we’re working in an atmosphere of constraints.
“The fact is that there is a shortage and that they are advertising, trying to encourage more people to consider being bus drivers,” Harmon said. “They’re trying signing bonuses. They’re trying whatever they can to make it attractive as possible.”
The school system so far this week has posted a letter from First Student seeking to hire bus drivers both on its website and its Facebook page to help the plea gain more visibility.
The city’s public schools reported Tuesday that one individual each at the Wexler Grant
School and the John S. Martinez Sea and Sky STEM Magnet
School had cases of COVID-19 confirmed over the weekend.
Also on Tuesday, Harmon said two additional individuals from Wexler and one from Martinez were quarantined for exposure to the confirmed cases.
On Friday, according to the district, two individuals at James Hillhouse High School, one at Benjamin Jepson Magnet School and one at Sound School had tested positive for COVID-19.
“The individuals have been instructed by the New Haven Health Department to remain home in isolation for 10 days, and have been provided with additional instructions to follow prior to returning to school,” according to the district.
The New Haven Public Schools follows Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance and Connecticut state mandates in the management of suspected COVID cases, Harmon said.
Prior to Friday, but since the beginning of school, a number of other New Haven Public Schools students had been confirmed with cases of COVID-19.
The district said last Thursday that a COVID-19 case was confirmed that day at each of Barack H. Obama Magnet University School, Wilbur Cross High School and Bishop Woods Architecture and Design Magnet School. Twelve individuals were quarantined at that time as a result: eight at Obama, two at Wilbur Cross, and two at Bishop Woods.
“A student each in the Davis Street Magnet and the Edgewood Magnet had cases confirmed (Wednesday),” the district said in emails last week. Two students in the Beecher Magnet school also had tests confirmed, according to the district.
Nine Davis students were quarantined for exposure to the student whose case was confirmed, according to the district. Three Edgewood students and six Beecher students initially were quarantined, the district said.
In a later update last week, the district confirmed that, in addition to two students at Beecher, a third individual at the school tested positive for COVID-19. “The individuals have been instructed by the New Haven
Health Department to remain home in isolation for 10 days, and have been provided with additional instructions to follow prior to returning to school,” Harmon said at the time.