If a positive case of COVID-19 occurs in a school, Colorado parents might not be notified unless their child was in a class with the infected person.
That’s because guidelines released this week by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment do not require administrators to disclose positive cases schoolwide unless there is an outbreak. Throughout the summer, the state has continued to make suggestions regarding school reopenings without mandating much, leading to a patchwork of health and safety standards among districts across Colorado.
The agency considers a school to have an outbreak when 5% or more of unrelated students, teachers and staff have confirmed cases of COVID-19. In schools that institute cohorting, an outbreak can also be defined as three or more cohorts with cases from separate households within a two-week period. In schools that don’t practice cohorting, two or more confirmed cases within two weeks constitute an outbreak.
On Wednesday, CDPHE released updated guidance and tools intended to help parents and school staff determine the best course of action when a student or teacher isn’t feeling well, or when there is a COVID-19 case in a school. Among them were letter templates administrators can use to notify families when COVID-19 cases occur in a school.
How case reporting works
When a person tests positive for COVID-19, their local health department is automatically informed of the results, said Ashley Richter, communicable disease epidemiology manager for Tri-County Health Department.
If the person is a school staffer or student, the department will notify the district, and then it’s up to the school district whom they want to inform.
“It’s the school’s decision whether or not to send a letter,” Richter said. “We do not have a protocol regarding this but help support the school how we can.”
Cherry Creek Schools, one of the state’s largest districts preparing for in-person classes to start this month, notes on its website that parents will be notified if there’s a positive case in their child’s classroom. Asked if schools would make a wider announcement for a single case, Abbe Smith, the district’s executive director of communications, said the district will notify the whole school if there is a confirmed case with a student or staff member.
CDPHE does require schools to report all outbreaks, suspected or confirmed, to their local public health agency or the state within four hours. The agency also plans to send a weekly survey to schools to obtain information about respiratory illnesses, such as how many students and teachers visited the school’s health office, how many exhibited COVID-like symptoms and how many were absent due to sickness.
All confirmed outbreaks will be posted weekly on the CDPHE website.
Lack of guidance causes frustration
Beyond setting hard quarantine protocols and standards for when a facility should close due to a coronavirus outbreak, much of the state’s guidance around reopening schools leaves decisions up to each district.
Over the past several weeks, The Denver Post has heard from teachers who say that sows more frustration than it does confidence. For example, before Colorado instituted a statewide mask mandate, only Denver Public Schools had announced it would require students and staff wear them during the school day — a crucial piece of the Centers for Disease Control’s back-to-school guidance.
Before DPS decided to start the year remotely, its plan to welcome students back for full-time in-person instruction called for cohorting students in groups of up to 30. Schools aren’t required to ensure enough space for people to be six feet apart — a fact that had Michele Morales, a fifth-grade teacher at Joe Shoemaker School, seriously considering quitting her job.
Julia Johns, a teacher at Alameda International Jr./Sr. High in Lakewood, recently coauthored a letter to Gov. Jared Polis and Jeffco Public Schools administrators asking that they reconsider the district’s plan to reopen for in-person instruction after Labor Day. The school is under construction, so teachers cannot use outdoor spaces for instruction like the state recommends, she said. And even as the school adheres to protocols such as designating hallways for one-way traffic, physical distancing will be a challenge.
“Our hallway looks a lot like that Georgia photo,” Johns said, referring to the image of a crowded North Paulding High School that recently went viral. “We barely manage getting that many kids through the hallway without a pandemic.”
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Colorado’s COVID guidelines for schools have many suggestions, few requirements - The Denver Post
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