When schools began reopening last fall, New Jersey education officials received pages of guidelines on when to quarantine classrooms and close schools if as few as two students or teachers tested positive for COVID-19.
Within two weeks of the start of the 2020-2021 school year, at least 20 schools had sent students home and temporarily switched to remote learning due to positive cases in their classrooms.
This year, school districts may not be so quick to shut down.
New health guidelines issued last month give local officials far more leeway in deciding when and if schools should close their doors due to COVID cases in the 2021-2022 school year. In addition, revised contact tracing rules — which change the definition of who is considered a “close contact” in the classroom — mean schools are required to do less tracking and notifying of classmates when a student tests positive for the virus.
The changes may come as a relief to some school officials trying to keep schools open as much as possible. But some parents have expressed concerns that they may not be alerted when students in their kids’ classrooms are coming down with COVID-19.
Meanwhile, state officials announced Wednesday that there have been at least six outbreaks in New Jersey schools since the start of the school year. Those outbreaks — defined as cases where three or more students or school staff are believed to have caught COVID in class or on school grounds — involved at least 20 students, teachers or school staff who got sick.
It is unclear if any of those six outbreaks lead to schools shutting down or quarantined classrooms.
“We don’t know the full story yet of how school reopening is going. We will obviously give you that data as we get it,” Gov. Phil Murphy said Wednesday at his coronavirus press briefing.
Redefining a ‘close contact’
This year’s new state guidelines on when schools should shut down are far less complex than the “matrix” charts local school and health officials were issued last year outlining what schools should do if they have one, two or three cases in a classroom.
Those charts have been replaced with broader guidance that says schools should consult with local health officials on what to do if they have an “outbreak” of three or more cases in which students or teachers appear to have caught COVID-19 at school.
“If an outbreak has been identified, schools and local health departments should promptly intervene to control spread while working to determine whether the outbreak originated in the school setting,” according to the Aug. 31 guidelines issued to local health departments.
The other big change is a new rule for the 2021-2022 school year that says students who sit within six feet of each other in the classroom are no longer considered “close contacts” who need to quarantine if one tests positive. Instead, a close contact is now considered a student who sits less than three feet from a classmate.
That means schools will have to do less contact tracing and require fewer students to quarantine when a classmate tests positive — as long as desks in a classroom are kept at least three feet apart. It could also mean parents are less likely to be notified if someone in their child’s class tests positive.
New Jersey’s new rules align with new federal Centers for Disease Control contact tracing guidelines, which now have an “exception” for students sitting 3 to 6 feet apart.
This exception does not apply to teachers, staff or other adults in classrooms, who will still be considered “close contacts” if they are less than six feet from an infected person for 15 minutes or more, the New Jersey school guidelines say.
As with all state education COVID guidance, New Jersey school districts can impose stricter rules if they want to be more cautious.
Pivoting to remote learning
It is unclear how many New Jersey schools have temporarily switched to remote learning so far this year due to COVID cases. State Department of Education officials did not immediately respond to a request for available data on closures or the number of schools that have reported positive COVID cases.
Robert Treat Academy, a K-8 public charter school in Newark, closed the doors of two campuses in August and switched to remote learning temporarily after in-school testing showed 11 staff members tested positive.
“We had multiple test results at each campus in various grades so both buildings were shut down immediately out of an abundance of caution until we could consult with the Department of Health and our school doctor,” school principals Marcelino Trillo and Paul Parada said at the time.
Parents in some districts have also started receiving letters saying some students have been quarantined due to “close contact” with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus. The letters are usually very vague and do not name students, teachers or specific classrooms.
In Pennsauken in Camden County, parents received a letter Sept. 13 — less than a week into the new school year — announcing “specific” students at Pennsauken High School were in close contact with someone with COVID-19.
“Due to an abundance of caution for our staff and students, specific students in Pennsauken High School will be placed on remote learning until Friday, Sept. 24,” the letter said.
No other details were given. The following day the Pennsauken school district also announced a student at Carson Elementary School and a student at Phifer Middle School tested positive. Both unnamed students were also placed on remote learning, though no details were given about what grades or classes they were in.
“The status of this situation is fluid, and we are monitoring it closely,” Pennsauken superintendent Ronnie Tarchichi told parents in a letter.
Notifying parents of a positive case
Some parents have also begun questioning why they are not being notified if someone in their child’s class tests positive for the virus under this year’s guidelines.
In Jersey City, school officials told the Jersey Journal there were confirmed cases of COVID-19 in at least four schools earlier this week after a staff member and four students, including a pair of siblings, caught the virus.
The families of students considered “close contacts” will be notified of possible exposure by a school nurse, school officials said. The schools remain open.
Some Jersey City parents turned to Facebook to express frustration that they were not told if the students who tested positive at the schools were in their child’s classroom, the Jersey Journal reported.
“My issue is that parents of students in the classroom were not notified it was a student in their child’s class,” one parent posted. “This is completely unacceptable.
“Kids in the same classroom are exposed and it should be shared with every parent in the classroom, not just those ‘in close contact’ because there is no way some district nurse is going to know who that child came in close contact within the classroom.”
Under state guidelines, the amount of time a student must stay home from school if they test positive or are in close contact with an infected person could vary based on their region.
For areas labeled high (orange) on the state’s COVID-19 transmission map, students must stay home from school for 14 days. For areas labeled moderate (yellow) or low (green), students should stay out of school 10 days — or seven days if they test negative on the fifth day or later.
For the week ending Sept. 4, the regions labeled high (orange) on the state’s COVID-19 Activity Level Report were the Central East (Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Union) and the Southeast (Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland). The rest of the state was labeled moderate (yellow).
It is unclear how many New Jersey schools shut down temporarily last year and switched to remote learning due to positive COVID-19 cases. The state did not publicly track closures.
The state did track outbreaks in schools, which were defined as cases in which people caught or transmitted the virus in the classroom or during academic activities.
Last year, there were 281 school outbreaks involving 1,263 positive tests among students, teachers and school staff, according to the state’s COVID-19 dashboard.
Staff writer Rebecca Panico contributed to this report.
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Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com.
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