City schools remain in-person as teachers quarantine, recover

Activist groups call for buildings to be closed

NEW HAVEN — After Gov. Ned Lamont announced his decision to make in-person education mandatory to count toward the 180-day school year requirement amid a surge in COVID-19 infections that has led to the highest positivity rate since widespread testing began, the onus has been on individual school districts to ensure they have safety protocols to prevent further transmission.

In New Haven — a school district with roughly 20,000 students, 2,000 staff and 44 schools — administrators, tutors and educational specialists have stepped in to lead classrooms as those teachers recover from the virus or quarantine while awaiting test results following potential exposure.

“We absolutely encourage folks to be cautious about COVID and not to come to school if they know they have tested positive,” said New Haven Public Schools spokesman Justin Harmon. “We have guidance from the city health department we have published any number of times that makes it clear we are working hard to play it safe for the sake of students and staff.”

At least one community organizer, however, said the protocols are not working well enough.

Catherine John, lead organizer for the group Black and Brown United In Action, said in a letter to district and city letters that a teacher positive for the virus had entered a school on Tuesday and “interacted with staff and students despite testing positive for COVID-19.”

The Register was unable to confirm the claim; Harmon said teachers have a right to medical privacy.

At a Wednesday evening protest, representatives of Black and Brown United in Action and activist group Unidad Latina en Accion called for the schools to be closed, accusing government leaders of keeping schools open to satisfy some voters instead of prioritizing public health.

John read a statement she said was from the teacher who had tested positive, saying he unknowingly had put students and colleagues at risk. He said that he tested positive while at work, after meeting with two classes. He said he had no symptoms and had received a negative test “only a few days prior.”

“Teachers are doing our best to stay the course and educate our students, but increasingly unstable and unsafe conditions are making that close to impossible,” the teacher said in the statement. “As a teacher and a parent, I know that remote learning isn’t an ideal solution, but we cannot continue sending students and staff to schools in unsafe conditions.”

With at-home tests becoming more widespread, it is possible that it will be more prevalent for more Connecticut residents to receive a positive test result before they show symptoms. Harmon said teachers, parents and students are familiar with what to do before entering a school building if they do have symptoms.

“We do have a checklist that all employees and all families are supposed to run through every day to make sure they are safe to go to school. It goes to primarily checking for symptoms. Anybody who experiences symptoms should not come to school,” Harmon said. “If they test positive, even if they are asymptomatic, they are supposed to be quarantining.

“It does depend on an honor system, and people need to be straightforward if they’re ill,” he said.