Covid Hits 8 Schools; Who Quarantines?

Officials had a dilemma after a kindergartener tested positive for Covid-19 this week at dual-language Christopher Columbus Family Academy: Who else should stay home?

In this case, one full class and multiple teachers went into quarantine.

Another class that shared the same teachers and used the same classroom later in the day as part of the school’s dual language program stayed in school.

New Haven education health officials have wrestled with these decisions — whom to quarantine, whom to keep in the building — since resuming partial in-person learning at pre-K-to-5th grade schools last week for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic hit last March.

Students or teachers have tested positive for Covid-19 since then in at least eight schools: Columbus, Beecher, Conte-West Hills, Lincoln Bassett, Nathan Hale, Benjamin Jepson, Barnard, and Ross Woodward. Officials have reported these cases in a near-daily dribble of letters to parents and staffers.

School has remained in session in the affected schools — for most of the students and teachers.

“We examine every case on a case-by-case basis. We’re looking at a lot of different factors and conduct thorough contact tracing to determine who should quarantine,” said the city Director of Public Health Nursing Jennifer Vazquez.

Some of these factors include who was within six feet of the Covid-positive person and the age of the class. Younger students are more likely to be moving around the class, meaning more students need to quarantine.

At Ross Woodward this week, for instance, 13 people were sent home, for instance, when a case was discovered. (Principal Bob Davis had no comment when asked about the decision-making.)

The cut-offs have left teachers and paraprofessionals worried about other children who might be affected and are still in school.

“I was a little concerned. Why weren’t the other children sent home too?” said one Columbus Academy educator, who is quarantining after a case (and asked to remain anonymous for fear of work-related backlash).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that students and staff who spent more than 15 minutes within six feet of someone with Covid-19 should quarantine. That includes people who were that close to the affected individual up to two days before their illness began.

The Connecticut State Department of Education and the Connecticut Department of Public Health have clarified that the whole class cohort should go home too, depending on the circumstances of the Covid-19 case.

At the same time, the CDC, state officials and schools around the country are shortening the number of days those exposed are required to quarantine to 10 days. This is in response to information that 97.5 percent of people who develop Covid-19 symptoms do so by the 11th day after exposure.

Schools that have been open throughout the pandemic have seen classes quarantining multiple times. In one district, none of the potentially exposed students ever came down with Covid, and some missed six weeks of in-person school as a result of the quarantines.

The English-Spanish Classroom Swap

What about situations, like the Columbus Family Academy dual language program, where students share teachers and classrooms?

At Columbus, the kindergartener didn’t show any symptoms of Covid-19 on Monday or Tuesday. He spent the morning learning in Spanish with the Spanish-focused teacher and paraprofessional. Then he switched with his classmates to the English-focused classroom for the afternoon. Meanwhile, the other class of kindergarteners swapped places and went to learn in the Spanish-focused classroom.

On Thursday, Principal Roy Araujo called the teachers and paraprofessionals exposed to the student and told them to stay home for 10 days. The kindergarteners who had direct contact with the sick child also stayed home. The kindergarteners who spent the afternoon in the Spanish classroom for the second half of the day did not.

This is what concerns the educator who spoke to the Independent.

“When somebody stays in direct contact with the student, they have to stay in quarantine, I understand that part,” the educator said. ​“It’s not fair to the other kids that went to the same place and there were Covid germs there.”

According to Vazquez, the other class should be safe, thanks to all the protective measures schools have put in place: Ventilation systems pump in fresh air. Students and staff wear masks and use sanitizer. Custodians disinfect high-touch surfaces. Students stay in cohorts with their classmates.

The school nurses and city epidemiologist check every school Covid-19 case for slip-ups in these procedures and check whether any infections have taken place at school. So far, so good, Vazquez said.

“For the most part, people are following the guidance that has been put together: using hand sanitizer, wearing masks, doing prescreening for symptoms. We continue to reiterate to families and staff the importance of following every one of these measures,” Vazquez said.

She said that the volume of questions her department gets about all of this guidance and other safety details indicates how proactive teachers and parents are about safety.

“We do appreciate that people are thoughtful,” she said.

So far, no one has caught Covid-19 while at school, Vazquez said.

Mayor Justin Elicker, the parent of a Columbus first-grader, lauded this side of the recent case announcements. He said his team is continuing to track this question as cases get reported.

“We have over 5,700 people in schools over past two weeks — 4,000 students, 1,700 staff,” Elicker said. ​“Given the community spread, it’s to be expected that people with Covid will come into the school buildings. The important thing is to minimize spread within the schools.”

Who Should Switch Classrooms?

Teachers union president Dave Cicarella had another view of that data.

“We expected to see some of this, and that’s not a good thing,” Cicarella said. ​“You can say that only seven locations have been affected. You can also say that we have seven locations affected when we had none last week, and how many are we going to have next week?”

Cicarella said he is not convinced that health officials have weighed all studies equally with whether it is safe for students to be back in school. He is also concerned that students are switching classrooms rather than letting teachers move to them.

“That is a bit of a problem. If we are having kids cohort, the idea is to keep them in the same space,” Cicarella said. ​“I think it would make more sense to have the teacher move from one group to the next.”

He has received similar questions from teachers at Columbus Family Academy about why one class is quarantining and the other is not. He said he is following up on that with health officials.

As a pediatrician, board member Tamiko Jackson-McArthur sees students switching classrooms as an unnecessary risk, when teachers could switch between classrooms instead. She added it’s not her call, though, as a board member.

It’s not the classroom that is the problem. It’s the movement between classes, she said.

“You’re going to catch Covid from another person. You’re not going to catch it from a desk, a pencil, or a notebook,” Jackson-McArthur said.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to be doing that type of switching classes. If students congregate or walk past each other, that movement complicates the situation if there becomes a problem.”

Jackson-McArthur said she would like to see more personalized communication with the school communities after each Covid-19 case. The board members get the same form-based letter after each case. She doesn’t know if there’s more follow-up within the school after that.

“[The form letter] brings a lot of questions into play. People aren’t comforted,” Jackson-McArthur said.

She would like to see more details about how the district is supporting families and staff to quarantine safely. Can the district deliver breakfast and lunch to them, for example?

Jackson-McArthur said she is not surprised by the number of cases so far or the number of people quarantining.

“Once you start bringing people back together, we knew that was going to happen,” she said. ​“The literature said that usually spread should not be that great in schools. For me, my thought is: How much are we willing to accept? We know that virtual learning is not the ideal situation. There are a lot of negatives with virtual education, but we have to weigh the risks.”