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Monday night’s Board of Education meeting.
Schools are accepting students back in, by appointment-only, to get their vaccines and physicals.
In the latest in a series of incremental reopening decisions, the New Haven Board of Education has given its permission for all 16 of its school-based health centers (SBHC) and six dental clinics to reopen for in-person appointments.
Meanwhile, classes remain remote-only for nearly all students during the first quarter out of Covid-19 safety concerns.
“With telehealth, we can’t give the immunizations and exams that are required for school entry. Every year, we bring hundreds into compliance and protect the school community from disease outbreaks,” said Sue Peters, the district’s director for the centers.
Peters said that the centers have continued to see their patients virtually since schools shut down when the Covid-19 pandemic started. However, some families are still struggling to get online and some necessary procedures need to happen in-person.
“Students already had been relying on SBHCs for essential health care needs well before this pandemic. Now with COVID, it’s even harder for parents to find work, childcare, transportation, healthcare and just about everything else,” Peters said.
The board members gave Peters unanimous approval for the in-person appointments at an online meeting Monday night. Board member Matthew Wilcox abstained from the vote because his spouse works for Clifford Beers, one of the providers involved in the clinics.
“I don’t have a big concern that there will be a lot of people in the building congregating. That made it easier for me to be supportive,” said Darnell Goldson, one of the most vocal opponents of resuming in-person classes in September.
Goldson said the rules for the clinics settled this decision for him. Only one student would be allowed in at a time, accompanied by at most one guardian. Appointments would be separated by 15-minute gaps, and surfaces would be disinfected.
Yale New Haven Hospital, Cornell Scott Hill Health Center, Fair Haven Community Health Care, Clifford Beers and the New Haven Health Department run the various clinics.They plan to replicate the safety procedures they have maintained at their hospitals and health care centers that have been open throughout the pandemic.
Peters said that only Fair Haven plans to offer Covid-19 tests on-site. The other clinics can order tests for their patients at nearby testing sites.
Read more about the plans for the health centers here.
Reopening Baby Steps
The two other reopening steps the board has taken are to open high schools for two days to administer PSATs and SATs, and to allow a small number of students with severe cognitive disabilities back to in-person classes.
The board learned on Monday that 43 students with disabilities took classes at their 11 schools last week. District Special Education Director Typhanie Jackson explained that the plan was to start small, with a maximum of five students per school. Seven of the families invited to return decided to stick to remote classes, four were dealing with other medical issues last week, and one was MIA enough to warrant special attention from truancy officers.
Many more students, around 1,600 juniors and seniors, have signed up for the Oct. 14 SAT test date and the Oct. 29 PSAT test date. Students will take the college admissions exams in groups of ten, at ten high schools.