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Date: 10/8/2021
GRANBY – The Granby School Committee met to discuss the future of masks and the start of their COVID-19 testing program on Oct. 5.
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) recently announced their statewide public school mask mandate has been extended through Nov. 1. Schools are able to bypass this if they have 80 percent of their population vaccinated by Oct. 15.
According to Superintendent Stephen Sullivan, Granby will most likely not reach that mark. He said that, district wide, they are not seeing school age students at that percentage and there is also more guidance needed from the state.
“There is some conversation around districts going Oct. 15 if they have the 80 percent rate, but, again, I think districts are waiting for some more information on calculating those numbers and who’s included in those numbers and who’s not included in those numbers. So we haven’t gotten guidance on that,” he said. “So we’re probably not part of that conversation, in addition to the Board of Health’s Granby mask mandate.”
Sullivan also provided an update on the COVID-19 testing program. He said that setting up the testing program and getting the necessary help from the state has been “a source of anxiety and frustration.”
Despite this, Sullivan said that Granby plans to do their first round of pool testing on Oct. 6. He said that Nurse Lead Nancy Jenks has put in a tremendous amount of work to get this set up and that they have not been provided a Program Coordinator from the state yet.
“So the support that we were promised from the state we are still waiting on, but we feel we have enough to go on,” said Sullivan. “At least one pool in both schools is our goal for tomorrow.”
Sullivan said they are trying to test pools of 10 students. If one test comes back positive for COVID-19, then the entire pool will be retested. There are then next steps that need to be taken, he said.
“We’re encouraged that we’re gonna try to run testing tomorrow on our own and, understandably, there might be some hiccups along the way and we’re going to learn from it,” he said.
Sullivan has also requested an update on vaccination status from all Granby Public Schools staff. He said that there are 144 total staff and, as of right now, 92 are vaccinated. Four are unvaccinated and 48 have not yet responded.
“We’re in a really good place if those numbers continue to play that way. We’re gonna be really close to that 80 percent for staff,” said Sullivan.
MCAS reports were also sent home to parents and guardians on Oct. 4, said Sullivan. He said that if anyone has any questions or concerns they are encouraged to reach out to his office or the schools.
He also said that he and the School Committee will be going over this data more in-depth in the future.
“We are working on some data sides that we’ll present to you all at the November meeting,” said Sullivan.
Those interested in viewing the School Committee Meeting in its entirety are encouraged to visit the Granby Community Access and Media YouTube page.