And I am continuing with the 11/23/2020 Board of Education meeting recap with Julie King’s overview of the Covid Tracker. In an effort to not bury relevant information in the middle of the recap, I will say here that my impression is that Barry O’Connell would very much like to see Covid testing made mandatory in order for students to return to school after an absence, whether that absence was Covid-related or not.
After reviewing the substitute situation at AASD Julie King provided a report of the district’s Covid tracker. You can view the case tracker here (http://www.aasd.k12.wi.us/district/safe___resilient_return/c_o_v_i_d-19_case_tracker). It provides a daily snapshot of anyone who is actively infectious or actively quarantining.
There is a one day lag in the information reported (i.e. Monday’s numbers are reported on Tuesday, etc) and one individual can show up on the tracker for 10-14 days. Their total student count was 1584 (on 11/23/2020 when the presentation was delivered, but is now up to 1,800 as of 12/02). Those are students receiving onsite services.
They only list students on the tracker if they are receiving in-person services and they know they are positive or they are being quarantined due to having been exposed in a school setting. They do not list as being in quarantine any students who are quarantining due to exposure outside of a school setting.
Unlike students, staff members have to report everything and are listed as positive or quarantining regardless of where they were exposed. They are also listed on the tracker even if they are still able to telework. Employee quarantines can result from close contact with a fellow employee or family member with symptoms due to having a family member or child in quarantine.
Polly VandeBoogart mentioned that the district has been able to do contact tracing within 24 hours. They determine close contacts based on the CDC’s guidelines which are within 6 feet for 15 minutes or a cumulative of 15 minutes throughout the course of the day. Their goal is that if they have a positive case on site whether a student or employee that they try to contain as many close contacts as they can. They don’t want to have to quarantine an entire class and hope that the more they work on mitigation strategies, the more they’ll be able to keep students in the classrooms.
Julie then reviewed the number of employee and student absences related to Covid. The graph she shared showed data through 11/20/2020.
Among staff, they’ve had 133 positive cases, 314 close contacts, 164 staff members self identify symptoms without having a confirmatory test, and 35 absences due to school/daycare closures. That’s 646 Covid related absences.
Amongst students they had 30 positive cases and 354 quarantined due to close contact on school property with a Covid-positive individual. Those stats don’t include close contact with a Covid-positive person outside of school.
They then opened things up for questions from board members.
Kay Eggert wanted to know if the people listed as being active positive cases were also included in the number of people quarantining or if the two numbers were separate.
Julie confirmed that they’re unique numbers. Obviously, someone who is actively infected will be quarantining, but they wanted to be able to add up all the numbers at the end to see the total amount of students and employees that are out on a given day without duplication.
Kay wanted to clarify that the quarantines listed are only those resulting from close contact in a school setting. It would not be family members or, for example, the sibling of a positive student.
Polly said that if the sibling is also attending school on site then they would be counted, but if that sibling is not an on-site learner then they would not be counted.
Kay wanted to know what happened if a student quarantined because their parent was positive.
Polly answered that if the quarantine resulted from exposure to someone outside school (such as a parent), then it would not be counted in their data.
Kay wanted to know how those absences would be tracked And does the district even track total absences?
Polly pointed out that kids can be quarantining and still able to engage virtually. They would need to give thought as to how to code absences appropriately to reflect whether a student is truly ill vs simply quarantining but still able to participate virtually.
Polly then confirmed that they are not currently collecting data on student absences caused by non-school coronavirus exposure.
Deb wanted to clarify how teachers who were exposed to Covid outside of school were counted.
Per Julie, employees do have to report if they are positive or have been in contact with someone who is positive. So in the cases of staff, the tracker does reflect all cases originating both in and out of AASD facilities.
Barry O’Connell wanted to know how they would find out if a student was absent because they tested positive. They typically wouldn’t have access to that information unless it was shared by a parent.
Polly confirmed that they would need parents to volunteer that information.
Barry said that he is aware that some districts are requiring students who’ve been absent to get tested in order to return to school regardless of the reason for their absence so the district can make sure they are receiving accurate information from the families. He thought AASD should consider doing something like that.
In his opinion, there were two issues. One is that children are often asymptomatic and don’t get sick, and they’re walking around infected. How does AASD detect that and determine how much spread is going on as a result of that? The other issue is parental reporting of sickness in their children.
Barry also wanted clarification on what people in the “self symptom” category were.
Julie told him that those are staff members who have Covid symptoms but have not been tested yet.
Barry asked and Julie confirmed that the different areas on the chart showing staff member absences were all unique and non-duplicated cases. Barry was concerned that out of 1900 staff members almost 300 (133 Covid positive and 164 non confirmed members with symptoms) have been affected by Covid. He was worried about whether AASD is contributing to community spread by allowing the current in-person instruction to occur and whether that impact would be amplified by increasing Virtual Plus options or moving to a hybrid instructional model.
Kris Sauter also wanted to know if the schools were able to get information regarding students who have been in contact with Covid positive individuals outside of the school setting.
Polly thought that the parents have been great at communicating with the schools. Parent/family communication is how they would get that information; they do not get that information from the health department.
Kris thought additional data on out of school exposures would be helpful, although she was not asking them to collect it right now.
Deb Truymann pointed out that AASD is part of the Fox Cities community, and all the other school districts around here are offering in-person instruction and are continuing to work things out. She did not think AASD should be afraid of the numbers. She thought they needed to give in-person instruction a shot. She respects the data that they’re getting, but reminded the others in the meeting that AASD is the island right now–the outlier that is not offering in-person education. All the other schools are doing it and making it work, and she asked everyone to please keep that in mind for the sake of the students and the families.
You can watch the whole meeting video here: https://youtu.be/-H-2LJ8eOAU
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