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Date: 8/25/2021
WESTFIELD – Mandating masks isn’t the only way administrators hope to slow the spread of COVID-19 in public schools this fall.
Minutes after voting 6-0 to continue last year’s policy requiring face coverings indoors for all staff and all students, regardless of age or vaccination status, the Westfield School Committee on Aug. 16 took the first step toward an in-school COVID-19 testing program.
“It’s a way to keep students in school,” said district Special Services Director Debra Ecker, who researched the program.
The testing program will be administered by the state, and is being offered to local school districts free of charge.
The schools would need parental consent to test children for COVID-19. Any child showing symptoms of the infection whose parents do not consent to testing would follow the district’s existing COVID-19 protocols.
“If they say ‘no,’ they’ll get sent home into quarantine,” said School Committee member Cindy Sullivan. “We’re not forcing testing. But we do have to enforce quarantining if they don’t get tested.”
Quarantine will be different this year, however. Because of the elimination of remote learning, any days spent in quarantine will be like sick days, and children will miss their classes during that time.
For the same reason, having rapid testing available in the schools would make it easier to keep teachers working, said Human Resources Director Paula Ceglowski. Because remote teaching is not an option this year, teachers who have to quarantine because they show symptoms, or because they are an unvaccinated close contact of a COVID-19 patient, will have to be replaced in the classroom by substitute teachers. Westfield schools, like others across the state, are struggling to find enough substitute teachers this year.
Ecker said the testing program includes three components, and Westfield can choose to adopt any one, two or all three of them. The “test-and-stay” service provides rapid-result tests for any person at school who shows symptoms of COVID-19; if the test comes back negative, the student or teacher can stay at school and does not need to quarantine. Another option would provide the same service for any unvaccinated person who does not have symptoms, but has been identified as a close contact of someone with a COVID-19 case. These students and staff would be tested for up to five days. The state is also offering “routine safety tests” – regular tests of a sample of students at each school to provide reassurance that the disease is not spreading undetected.
Testing would be performed by medical staff provided by the state, with two to four testers stationed in each school building. Materials, shipping and laboratory work are included. Ecker said the state can provide up to 100 tests per day in Westfield.
The School Committee had to decide by Aug. 20 whether to apply for participation in the program. If it is chosen, the district can decide at a later date which components to use.
Earlier at the Aug. 16 meeting, the School Committee voted to continue mandating the wearing of face masks for all students and staff, while indoors. Committee members acknowledged that many Westfield parents and students want masking to be an individual decision, and question the need for vaccinated people to wear face coverings. They said with the recent spread of the delta variant of COVID-19, with vaccines not approved for children under 12 and with half the Westfield community still unvaccinated, loosening the restrictions at the start of the school year would be too risky.
Mayor Donald Humason thanked the parents and students who had shared their thoughts on masking through an online survey, through emails and through spoken comments at the Aug. 16 meeting. He predicted that the School Committee will be eager to revisit its policy on masks as infection rates, vaccination rates and vaccine availability for children change.