As they finalize their reopening plans, New Jersey public school district officials have been fielding the same questions from parents for weeks.
What happens if a student or teacher tests positive for COVID-19? Will you shut the school down? Or quarantine just that classroom? Will you wait for a positive test? Or send everyone home every time a kid has symptoms?
And how many cases do you need to have before you close the whole district and switch to all-remote learning?
With the first day of school just weeks away, most school officials say they don’t have definitive answers to any of the coronavirus questions. Local public health officials say they are frustrated the state seems to be leaving big decisions about keeping students and teachers safe to them without any guidelines.
“Asking local public health officials to interpret vague rules for reopening schools without clear and concise guidance from our state counterparts while we are still inundated fighting a pandemic is, in a word, exasperating,” Megan Avallone, the top health officer in Westfield and president of New Jersey Association of County and City Health Officials, testified before the state Assembly last week.
The state’s 104-pages of school reopening guidelines, issued in June, say school districts need to have procedures in place to inform local health officials and start contract tracing when a teacher or student tests positive. But the guidelines do not say when individual classrooms or entire schools should be closed -- or for how long.
That has left both educators and health officials worried that too much responsibility is being put on local school and health officials to figure out when and if to recommend closing or quarantining schools when COVID-19 cases inevitably arise. There are also concerns the lack of definitive rules will mean the response to positive cases will vary widely from town to town in New Jersey.
Gov. Phil Murphy said state officials are talking about the health issues with local school districts. There are no simple answers, he said.
“This is something that is also hotly being discussed with districts. What’s the protocol if you do get a positive case?” Murphy said at Monday’s coronavirus update press conference in Trenton.
“If you shut down, how much do you shut? How long do you shut? Where do the kids go? What happens to Mom and Dad who are both working full time?” Murphy said. “None of that’s easy. So, bear with us on that front.”
State education officials said the reopening report, called “The Road Back,” was meant to be an evolving plan and the guidelines will be amended as needed before schools reopen. The guidelines say many key decisions are left to local school officials because no one plan will fit all of New Jersey’s more than 500 diverse school districts.
The lack of strict guidance on how schools will handle positive cases comes as parents across the state are deciding whether to send their children back to school for in-person classes for the 2020-2021 school year or opt for the “all-remote” plan to do their schoolwork at home.
At last week’s state Assembly Education committee, local health officials, school nurses and school superintendents expressed frustration with the plan to leave health decisions to local schools and health officers.
New Jersey’s network of local and county health officers are underfunded, understaffed and overwhelmed with handling the coronavirus pandemic, said Avallone, head of the statewide association of health officials.
Earlier this year, before Murphy ordered the statewide shutdown and closure of all schools in March, there was confusion in school districts as the first suspected coronavirus cases began to pop up, she added.
“Frankly, during this past spring schools and local health departments were essentially forced to make decisions in a vacuum without any set guidance from our state departments. No one wishes to be in that position in September, particularly with rates of disease anticipated to rise in the fall,” Avallone said.
The state reopening guidelines also call for every school to set up an “isolation room” for students and teachers who go to the school nurse with symptoms of COVID-19.
But the guidelines do not say specifically how isolation rooms should be set up, so there have been disagreements in school districts about what equipment and air filtration systems are needed, said Robin Cogan, a school nurse in Camden and legislative co-chair of the New Jersey State School Nurses Association.
“These are the kinds of things that are happening on the district level that I am concerned about may translate into the ways these guidelines are being implemented that are not the safest,” Cogan said.
Though schools have a long history of dealing with flu outbreaks, cases of lice and other childhood illnesses, few school administrators have had to confront a disease as contagious and potentially deadly as COVID-19, officials said.
“We can do education all day long because that’s the business we’re in. But we can’t do health,” testified Melanie Schulz, director of government relation for the New Jersey Association of School Administrators. “This is a particularly dangerous time for all of us and we really do need a health partner to hold hands with us and walk this journey.”
It is unclear if other states have issued more specific guidelines on how schools should respond when students and teachers show coronavirus symptoms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued revised federal guidelines on reopening schools last week, but they did not address whether schools should ask classrooms or entire schools to stay home if students or teachers get sick.
Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt, head of the state Assembly Education Committee, said the list of questions about whether New Jersey public schools have the safety measures in place to reopen is growing.
“It is evident at some point we’re going to have to act on the information that we have because the stark reality is that, with roughly five weeks left for schools to safely implement a plan before reopening, time is quickly running out,” said Lampitt, D-Camden.
Lampitt was one of three Assembly Democrats who said they plan to introduce a bill that would keep public schools closed and require remote learning until at least Oct. 31. Murphy did not comment on the bill Wednesday, but said he believes offering at least some in-person classes is best for students.
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Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com.
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