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Date: 12/16/2021
BELCHERTOWN – With the policy that would require testing for all students participating in extracurriculars seeming like it was going to cross the goal line to pass, the Belchertown School Committee once again opened the debate on the policy about the logistics of the testing and potentially focusing on high-risk extracurricular activities instead of all extracurricular activities during its Dec. 7 meeting.
To start the discussion, committee member Michael Knapp said he was unsure about how effective adding more students to the COVID-19 Safety Check program, formerly known as pool testing, would be considering the program has only identified four cases since September.
“If we triple the amount of asymptomatic screenings, it sounds like we are still going to identify a small fraction of the total COVID [-19] cases in the district. If I look at it that way, I have to ask how much effort is that worth?” he said.
He added he would be in favor of limiting the testing to the riskier activities including sports and band.
“We had a compromise back in November and I was very comfortable with the vaccine or test for certain extracurriculars. In my book, that is a great way to make sure kids stay in school without overwhelming the testing regime that we have,” Knapp said. “For me the riskiest activities and getting those kids checked are the biggest things.”
Committee member Amy LaMothe said she was in favor of starting with a larger group before narrowing it down.
“I am in favor of keeping it as all non-credited extracurriculars for now and adjusting if it is overwhelming for we are not seeing results. My concern is we are not seeing them in the pool testing now but if we add who is coming back it might give us some more information if we add all the extracurriculars,” she said.
Committee member Diane Brown said she was also in favor of limiting testing to riskier activities.
“When we first started talking about vaccines and now, we are switching to testing, I initially was thinking about sports and band, especially sports where you are going out of town and are in other districts. We have worked through so many different things with this policy and my preference would be to keep it with sports and not everything,” she said.
Because many of the extracurriculars are an extension of the school day, Brown said it made sense to keep the protocols consistent.
“It is the same strategies that we are using after school for any after school kind of program. You have a teacher there, they are still wearing masks because they are inside the school building and they are keeping distance, so I am comfortable with after school programs held within the school setting following the same protocols within the school day,” she said.
Superintendent Brian Cameron said he heard similar sentiment from parents in town.
“If my son or daughter is in school for six hours a day, they go down the hallway, there is a teacher there wearing a mask, they are three feet apart and there are less numbers of students in the classrooms, what is the difference?” he said.
Phyllis DuComb, the district’s School Nurse Leader, said the additional students would significantly increase the time spent with the weekly COVID-19 Safety Checks.
“At the high school it takes us 45 minutes to do the testing we do. With the added 300 students from the extracurriculars, it would probably take three hours to do that test,” she said. “Without the proper staff it will take a long time.”
By narrowing down to high-risk activities, Knapp said it would pose less of a burden to nursing staff than opening the floodgates with every extracurricular activity.
“If we are adding something for extra safety, I feel that focusing on some of the higher risk activities does not require a lot of extra staff time and it might give us a big payoff, which is why I am more comfortable focusing on some of the higher risk activities,” he said.
After LaMothe asked DuComb what would be easier, she said it would be easier for her staff to start with a smaller number before expanding the testing to all extracurriculars.
Ultimately, the committee agreed to table a final decision on the policy until its next meeting while awaiting further comment from the town’s legal counsel.
The committee also briefly entertained requesting a waiver from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to allow students at the high school who are vaccinated to not wear masks once it hits the 80 percent vaccination rate as outlined by DESE but unanimously agreed to bring the discussion back during the committee’s second January meeting once any potential COVID-19 spike from the holidays has passed.
The Belchertown School Committee next met on Dec. 14 and coverage of that meeting will appear in the Dec. 23 edition of The Reminder.