We believe that better implementation of safety measures is necessary to reduce the possibility of future outbreaks that jeopardize student and staff safety. Families and educators are under the impression that pool testing and symptomatic testing are taking place, followed by prompt reporting to school communities, contact tracing, notification of close contacts, and Test and Stay. Across many schools in the district, this process is either happening too late, is incomplete, or is not happening at all.
Contact tracing has been inadequate. We want to be very clear that the responsibility for contact tracing does not lie with school nurses. Nurses simply do not have the capacity to conduct contact tracing in addition to safely caring for their students with chronic conditions like diabetes and asthma, treating acutely ill students, quarantining and rapid-testing students with COVID symptoms, and executing their many other daily responsibilities. BPS and BPHC have recently hired a new vendor, HealthCare IT, to add capacity for contact tracing. We are hopeful that the situation will improve.
Similarly, the state’s pool testing and Test and Stay programs have been inconsistent and ineffective in many of our schools. The state’s vendor, CIC, has not been able to keep up with demand and these critical measures have not been consistently happening in all schools. Families are not notified when pool testing does not happen, and incorrectly assume that these measures are in place.
BPS recently changed their policy regarding notification to school communities, and now schools should be notified immediately when a positive case is confirmed within a school, instead of waiting until contact tracing is completed. We have long called for this prompt notification and are glad that BPS has now agreed to the BTU’s insistence on this issue.
However, we feel it is our duty to shed light on the current issues. We have heard from many schools that contact tracing is either not happening at all or has happened so late that close contacts (some of whom later became symptomatic) were in school for many days with no Test and Stay, and no notification of families or educators. For example:
- At a large K-8, three positive pools were identified in one day. Reporting forms were submitted with lists of close contacts collected by the nurse. Contact tracers reached out to the teacher in only one case, after the positive child was already back in school and had completed isolation. Contact tracers never confirmed the list of close contacts, and Test and Stay was never enacted correctly. Parents/caregivers were not notified in a timely manner, if at all, regarding their child’s exposure.
- At a different large K-8, a teacher stayed home sick and got a positive test at an outside clinic. The teacher was contacted by a MA state contact tracer, who told her that they would not follow up with her school contacts, since BPS had a separate system. The school community received a letter stating that contact tracing would be conducted. Yet despite multiple follow-ups by the teacher and nurse, a week later no additional contact tracer had contacted the teacher.
- At an Early Education Center, two positive kindergarten students were found in a pool test. No one reached out to their teacher to determine close contacts for three more days. The pace of contact tracing did not keep up with the virus’ spread. A week after the initial positive cases, four of the students in the class had tested positive, five more were home with symptoms, and only then were the remaining students and educators tested.
- At a high school, a staff member tested positive. Over a week later, another staff member, who knew he was a close contact, still had not been contacted for testing, nor had any other close contacts. No one at the school received any official communication that there was a positive case until a week later.
Furthermore, dozens of schools reported that they lack an isolation space for symptomatic individuals. Our Safety Agreement provides that a team of BTU and BPS representatives will conduct walkthroughs at those schools to find appropriate spaces. We have let BPS know that we are ready to begin walkthroughs and are awaiting their response.
Unfortunately, these examples are a few among dozens of reports of inadequate implementation of safety protocols that we have received. We urge DESE, the BPHC and BPS to take steps to keep students, families, and educators safe. Experts from the Massachusetts Coalition of Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH) have advised the BTU on proper safety procedures, and we sent a letter to BPS yesterday with a list of recommendations. To summarize:
- Ensure that all contact tracing is completed within 48 hours of a positive test result.
- Notify all educators and families of the students in a child’s class, as well as close contacts, of a positive case within 24 hours.
- Ensure pool testing happens weekly in every school.
- Notify parents/guardians if their child was unable to be tested during their weekly pool testing.
- Procure rapid tests for self-administration by symptomatic staff.
- Add to the dashboard published weekly on the BPS website:
a. The percent of the student and staffing body at each school tested through pool testing.
b. The percentage of cases, by school, for which contact tracing was not able to be completed within 48 hours. - Evaluate the implementation of COVID mitigation strategies using the BPS Racial Equity Planning Tool.
- Conduct a thorough and independent outbreak investigation at the Curley K-8 School to identify factors that led to the outbreak.
- Allow remote learning days that are necessary to protect the health and safety of students and educators to count towards the 180 days of required instruction.
We hope that DESE, BPS and the City of Boston act swiftly to improve adherence to their safety protocols. These measures must be taken to prevent COVID, maximize learning, and keep our community safe.