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Superintendent Tracey: Preparing for the “extreme.”
The city’s public schools are taking initial steps to prepare for a shutdown if the coronavirus makes it to New Haven, readying take-home lessons and food supplies for students.
Superintendent Iline Tracey presented those early plans for dealing with COVID-19, as the fast-spreading virus is officially known, to the Board of Education at its Monday night meeting at King-Robinson School.
As one board member pointed out, the meeting might have to be one of their last in-person get-togethers for a while.
Absent a confirmed case in a New Haven family, Tracey said, she’ll be consulting with Renee Coleman-Mitchell, the state public health commissioner, and Maritza Bond, the city public health director about whether a preventive school closure might be necessary.
Tracey said that her staffers have been pulling together online lessons that students could work on at home. Principals are coming up with alternatives for students who wouldn’t be able to log in because they don’t have an Internet connection.
She added that, with Mayor Justin Elicker, she’s talking with United Way about ways to replace the free breakfast, lunch and supper that schools provide to families who cannot “survive without that food in case we’re shut down for two weeks, for a month.”
“Working with all of us, we’re thinking about contingency plans, should we have to go to that extreme in our district,” Tracey said. “We’re trying not to create trepidation in our school community. We have to do what’s responsible, planning for our students and their families. We can’t do it all, but we are trying, as much as things are within our control, to be supportive.”
School board members vote to cancel most field trips.
During Monday’s meeting, the board also took steps to prevent coronavirus’s spread.
It unanimously voted to cancel all field trips where students would be leaving the state or attending events with more than 100 people. It left discretion to the executive committee to review other student activities, including athletic competitions.
“I know some parents don’t feel uncomfortable [sending their kids on field trips], but they are cancelling conferences all over the country,” said Tamiko Jackson-McArthur, a pediatrician on the school board. “While children may feel sad, I understand that because I say ‘no’ to my children often. But I think we as a district need to postpone these trips, especially conferences.”
“I’m not prepared to take any risk,” she added, after hearing some parents might lose hundreds of dollars they put down as a deposit. “There’s no price on a child’s life.”
Tracey said that the district is also reviewing its protocols for accepting new students who are transferring in, making sure that they’ve received all their necessary immunizations.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of Monday evening 423 Americans in 35 states have tested positive for coronavirus, 19 of whom have died — a rapid outbreak since the country’s first reported transmission of the disease less than two months ago.
The respiratory illness might cause little more than a cough or sore throat, but it can escalate to high temperatures, strained breathing and achy muscles. In more severe cases, patients might experience pneumonia or worse.
So far, there have been two confirmed cases among Connecticut residents, leading governments to postpone events and colleges to cancel classes.
Toni Criscuolo: How can we get parents to keep sick kids home?
Toni Criscuolo, a history teacher at Engineering & Science University Magnet School, a middle and high school on the now-vacated University of New Haven campus, said the district could do more to prevent the spread of illnesses within the buildings.
She said she worries that too many parents send their kids to school sick. She asked the school district to take “some stricter steps” to enforce the rules.
“It’s a common problem, every day, all day. Within half an hour, they throw up, and they don’t come and get them,” she said. “Parents sending obviously ill children on a regular basis are threatening everyone.”
Criscuolo also asked for the district to think about paying its custodians a few hours of overtime to really scour the buildings, disinfecting any surfaces where germs might easily spread.