School Reopening Paused Amid Covid Spike

The vast majority of New Haven Public Schools’ (NHPS) 20,500 students will continue learning all-online for the foreseeable future — as Mayor Justin Elicker announced the school system has pushed back its hybrid reopening date because of the spike in local Covid-19 cases.

And New Haven itself will revert to ​“Phase II” mode of partial economic shutdown in an attempt to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

The mayor and top schools, health, and other City Hall officials — including NHPS Superintendent Iline Tracey and city Health Director Maritza Bond — gave that update Thursday afternoon during the city’s latest Covid-19 virtual press conference.

The presser was held online via Zoom and YouTube Live (and can be watched in full on the mayor’s YouTube page here, and above.)

Elicker said that the city school system will not begin hybrid learning, in which students who opt in would be able to return to in-person school for some of the week, on the originally scheduled date of Nov. 9.

Instead, public school will remain almost entirely online due to a sharp increase in coronavirus cases — as evidenced by, among other indicators, increased local hospitalizations, the state’s recent jump in testing positivity rate, and a spike in concentration of Covid-19 RNA in New Haven wastewater. The RNA concentration in human waste is considered an early indicator of the coronavirus’s spread.

Up to 125 students with autism and severe disabilities, however, will continue to be able to attend classes in person, as they’ve been able to do since mid-September.

New Haven currently currently has a two-week rolling average of 13.9 new cases per 100,000 people. A dramatic spike is expected based on analysis of local wastewater.

Elicker said that that 13.9 per 100,000 number is almost certainly well below the actual current new case rate.

That’s because a regional Covid-19 testing service called Docs Urgent Care has had significant delays in reporting its numbers to the state.

The mayor said that, up until recently, the city had also not been factoring most of Yale University’s Covid case numbers into its daily reviews because many of Yale’s students do not list New Haven as their primary place of residence.

“We are headed towards a higher spike,” Elicker said during the presser. ​“And headed towards the red” on the governor’s spectrum of yellow, orange, and red town-level Covid risk.

“What’s alarming for us is that we have a data gap,” Bond added about the unreported cases by Docs Urgent Care. ​“There’s a high possibility that we re going from the orange category to potentially red” — that is, more than 15 new cases per 100,000 over a two-week average.

Bond said that the city and school system will consider starting in-person school again only once the city is back in the ​“yellow” risk range — with less than 10 new cases per 100,000.

In addition to the pausing of a return to in-person school, Elicker announced Thursday that, starting next Wednesday, City Hall will be closed, accessible by appointment only. City Hall will remain open to the public on Tuesday, however, to allow for prospective voters to come by and register in person through the city’s Election Day Registration setup.

Elicker and city Economic Development Chief Mike Piscitelli also said that the city will be reverting immediately from Phase 3 to Phase 2 of the state’s reopening restrictions. That means that restaurants will see their allowed in-door occupancy drop from 75 percent to 50 percent, and indoor entertainment venues will have to shutter for the time being.

Piscitelli said that restaurants will be able to continue with outdoor dining through the winter and on into March, and that the city will be helping restaurants come up with marketing plans that promote take out, among other more Covid-safe services.(Here are details on the phase.) City inspectors plan to step up visits to local businesses to make sure they comply.

School Will Stay Remote ​“Indefinitely”

In an email sent out right before the press conference, as well as during the presser itself, Elicker explained what’s next for city schools.

“We will not be opening schools in the hybrid model on November 9th as originally planned. Instead, students will continue remote learning, as they have done since the start of the school year,” Elicker is quoted as saying in an email press release sent out at 3 p.m. ​“We know this decision creates a hardship on many New Haven families. The Health Director, Dr. Tracey and I did not make this decision lightly.”

He also said that student learning hubs that the city operates will be closed indefinitely starting this coming Monday. And that the city is encouraging privately run learning hubs to close as well.

Elicker said that this decision was not made lightly. But that it is consistent with how the city and the school system have responded to the pandemic since its start. ​“When cases are very low, we can go back to school,” he said, ​“but when cases go up, that means we need to dial back and stick with remote learning.”

“I know the pain my families are feeling,” schools Superintendent Iline Tracey said at the press conference.

“With great contemplation and a lot of pushing back and arguing, we came to the conclusion that it is very important to err on the side of caution. … As soon as we’re able to open back, we’ll be the first to open back. I know there is a lot of disappointment out there on every side.”

Elicker and Tracey said that the city school system will continue to provide in-person learning for up to 125 students with autism and other severe disabilities.

It will also continue its weekday distribution of breakfast and lunch meals out of 39 different schools across the city. NHPS Chief Operating Officer Michael Pinto said that the school system will not have school buses do meal drop offs on Friday because of a recent outbreak at the bus company, First Student.

Bond said that First Student recently had seven positive cases and three pending results for employees who were exposed. She said that a majority of those who tested positive were bus drivers and monitors. One student was exposed to a positive bus driver, and has been told to quarantine.

“The source of the issue was a social gathering,” Bond said about the First Student outbreak. ​“A local party.” Bond said that the bus company did not report the outbreak to the school system and the city in a timely fashion, as they are required to do.

The announcement puts a pause on the return-to-school plans that the Board of Education and NHPS teachers, administrators, and students have been preparing for since at least early August. That’s when the Board of Ed took its first vote to keep schools physically closed and learning entirely online for the first 10 weeks of the fall semester.

Soon after the Sept. 3 first day of all online school, the Board of Education voted to reopen in-person learning for a maximum of 125 students districtwide who have autism or other severe disabilities.

In the interim, the school system has installed new air filtration systems and set up on-site Covid-19 testing operations at public school building throughout the city, among other preparations for a return to some form of in-person learning.

In the ninth week of all-online school, 625 students — or 3 percent of the NHPS student body—still have not logged onto virtual classes at all, while another 2,216 students — or 11 percent of the student body — are logging on sporadically.

Just over a week ago, the school system announced that 44 percent of students planned to stick with all-online learning even with the scheduled start of hybrid education on Nov. 9.

“Ray Charles Could Have Seen This Coming”

Engineering and Science University Magnet School senior Reuel Masoperh (pictured) said that he had planned to go back to in-person classes. He was not sure how he felt about that possibility getting postponed.

“I’m not too worried about the switch. I’m doing all right,” Masoperh said.

Masoperh suggested that schools could make more one-on-one time with teachers available during this step back.

“I know some teachers already have office hours, but not all do. It would be to replicate after school study sessions or one-on-one teacher meetings,” Masoperh said. ​“That’s one thing I would vouch for.”

“I think it was a smart decision. I think Ray Charles could have saw it coming months ago,” said board member Darnell Goldson.

Goldson has raised concerns about schools reopening for in-person classes for months. His focus has often been on making sure union leaders have a voice in reopening decisions and making sure every school bus has a bus monitor to make sure students are not taking off their masks.

“I’m not gloating. I don’t want to say, ​‘I told you so.’ Nobody wants to have to do remote,” he said, pointing to his grandson and daughter’s experiences with distance learning.

“Until there is a vaccine and we have better control of the virus, what we should focus on is making the remote experience better for everyone,” Goldson said.

He pointed out that churches first raised the idea of learning hubs in New Haven. He said that the city and schools should focus on similar creative solutions rather than reopening schools when transmission decreases.

New Haven Public Schools Advocates parent Sarah Miller agreed.

“I think it’s the right call. It sucks. It’s terrible that we’re in the situation,” Miller said. ​“There are no good answers, which is kind of where we’ve been all along.”

Miller helped organize protests in the summer arguing that schools need more funding to reopen safely and that one life lost because of reopening was one life too many. At the most recent Board of Education meeting, she and other Advocates asked the board to publish clear guidelines about when schools would open or close based on local Covid data, like sewage analyses. She said that though the hybrid opening is delayed, those guidelines would still be helpful.

“For those of us watching this closely, we knew this was coming. For most families, this came totally out of the blue,” Miller said. ​“I think absence of that [clear guidance] has created this whiplash feeling of not knowing what to expect.”

She also thought the school district should focus on creative ways to help students in the ways schools normally do.

“Create places to interact socially online, or in small groups in person,” Miller said.

East Rock parent Anika Singh Lemar told the Independent that she understands the city’s decision, and why city and school officials are so concerned about the latest Covid numbers.

She, like her husband Roland Lemar (see more below), argued that the district’s ten weeks of remote learning was a missed opportunity. She pointed out that many had guessed in August that the winter and the onset of flu season would push case numbers up.

“This was entirely predictable. Rather than take advantage of the months when community transmission was low to have some in-school learning, we lost that time. Districts around us didn’t lose that time,” Singh Lemar said.

She said that she hopes these months of planning will make it easy to reopen schools in the future. She emphasized the importance of listening to public health experts and not hypothesizing without that medical expertise.

“I hope that when public health officials — when public health officials,” she repeated, “ — once again believe that it is safe, we’re able to quickly adjust.”

Lemar: Pause Wise; Last 2 Months ​“Missed Opportunity”

State Rep. Roland Lemar told the Independent Thursday afternoon that he supports the Board of Education’s decision to move away from the Nov. 9 hybrid learning date.

“If we’re following public health guidance and the data that we’ve received over the last week and the analysis with regard to sludgewater in Greater New Haven, I think it is the smart choice to press pause on reopening and reevaluate on a week-by-week basis.”

Echoing comments he made in a CTMirror article from earlier this week, Lemar also lamented what he sees as a serious missed opportunity to have some kind of in-person option for public school students over the past two months.

“Every public health official around the country has warned of a potential spike this fall and winter when there would be so much more indoor activity,” he said.

“I do think that NHPS and the city and the state should have had an in-person option available starting in late August and early September when school districts across the state were going back” to a hybrid or in-person learning model.

Despite the best efforts of everyone involved — teachers and Board of Ed members and school administrators and support staff alike — so many students have struggled to overcome the technological and social-emotional hurdles associated with all-online learning from home.

He applauded teachers for ​“their great work to identify the needs of all of our students” during this upended school year.

But, he said, New Haven school students have suffered a likely incalculable hit over the past two months because of a lack of access to in-person education.

“I feel like we had a missed opportunity that we’ll have a hard time catching up with in the future,” Lemar sad. ​“It’s going to be difficult to ascertain the amount of loss we’ve had” for students who simply have not been able to stick with online school in the way that they might have with an in-person option.”