WESTFIELD/SOUTHWICK – With students returning to school in person, reporting COVID numbers is becoming even more important in schools.
How that data is shared with the school community and general public, however, is up to each district.
STEFAN CZAPOROWSKI,
Westfield Public Schools Superintendent
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) issued reopening guidelines for schools across the Commonwealth last summer, but its guidelines for notification of positive cases is nearly nonexistent.
“Districts are required to report positive cases to us if the individual was inside a school building within seven days of testing positive,” said DESE Media Relations Coordinator Jacqueline Reis on Feb. 3. “How and whether districts notify their school community, including families, is up to the district.”
At Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District, Superintendent Jennifer C. Willard reports out to the public and district families as cases are known.
“I meet with the Southwick Board of Health, public health nurse and district lead nurse every week,” Willard said. “At the beginning of the school year we were told we should be reporting COVID cases to families.”
Whenever anyone within the district – student or staff – tests positive, all district families and staff are notified via an emailed letter after any close contacts are notified.
Willard said while the district cannot provide specifics of the infected person, it can share which building the person works or attends school in and if the person was remote or inside a building while positive. Willard said STGRSD goes a step further and posts weekly COVID updates on its website, including the number of positive tests, negative tests and numbers of people in quarantine.
“I’m a believer in transparency, especially during COVID,” she said. “As a parent, I want to know about cases in my child’s school.”
Willard said contact tracing is performed for every positive case in partnership with the town’s health officials.
In Westfield, Superintendent Stefan Czaporowski said families and staff are alerted to positive cases within specific schools, but not district-wide.
JENNIFER C. WILLARD,
Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School Superintendent
“While we have students in session, we notify close contacts with a personal phone call and then send out a follow-up letter,” Czaporowski said. “We only notify community members of a specific building that there was a positive case and that they would have received a phone call if they had been considered a close contact. Our nurses also reach out to families if there are siblings.”
DESE early on recommended the close contact letters, said Czaporowski. “We thought a personal phone call was more appropriate,” he said.
During remote learning Dec. 18 – Feb. 2, no letters were sent because students and staff were not in school. “We will resume our previous notification system today,” Czaporowski said on Wednesday.
Westfield Public Schools administration worked with the Westfield Health Department in developing its notification plan.
“Incidentally, they also help us make phone calls and perform contact tracing,” Czaporowski said. “As for numbers, while I don’t post them to our website, I have started reporting out the daily counts at our school committee meetings right before [Health Director] Joe Rouse speaks about community numbers. And truthfully, no one has ever asked us to post our daily numbers. We do have a link to information about COVID and the district on our district page.”
