Rochester Public Schools to pilot new testing model aimed at minimizing quarantines
Rochester Public Schools interim superintendent Kent Pekel laid out several updates to the district’s Covid-19 safety plan at Tuesday night’s School Board meeting — including new thresholds for distance learning and a pilot program that could keep more kids out of quarantine.
‘Test to stay’ pilot
Following MEA break later this month, the district plans to work with three schools — one at each level — on an alternative pilot that would help students with negative test results get back into the classroom faster.
The approach, known as “test to stay,” would allow close contacts of students with confirmed cases to come back to school after 24 hours, as long they provide daily negative test results. (Testing would be optional. Close contact students choosing not to opt-in to daily testing would be required to quarantine per current guidelines.)
The pilot comes as more schools are shifting to the daily testing model as a way of keeping students in the classroom. Studies have shown the approach to be comparable to quarantines at controlling infection rates in schools.
Free testing option
Additionally, Pekel said RPS has developed a plan to offer free, optional testing for all students and staff across the district.
Two types of screening tests will be available, including an at-home rapid antigen test that produces results within minutes utilizing a nasal swab.
Another home kit utilizing saliva samples is already available for students and staff. Those kits can be taken and turned into schools twice a week. The district then sends the completed tests to the lab for processing.
Thresholds for distance learning
While Pekel says the goal is to keep students in the classroom as much as possible, he did clarify the district’s worst-case scenarios in which students would likely move to distance learning for 14 days.
The thresholds the district will use are:
Classroom: 15 percent of staff and students in the classroom with symptoms of Covid-19 and/or confirmed positive Covid-19.
Grade level: 50 percent of staff and students in a grade level are positive, symptomatic, or quarantined.
School Building: 50 percent of staff and students in the school building are positive, symptomatic, or quarantined.
Pekel said the numbers are not an exact trigger, but when district staff would begin having discussion about moving kids to distance learning.
So far this year, 1,651 individuals have been directed to quarantine, mostly as small groups of individuals classified as close contacts. In some cases, however, entire classrooms have been directed to quarantine.
There have been no instances of entire grades or schools shutting down due to the spread of Covid-19 — though at least one board member suggested lowering the threshold for when that would take effect.
“To me, that almost seems like the horse is already out of the barn a little bit,” Board Director Melissa Amundsen said of the thresholds. “By the time it gets shut down, the other 50 percent would already be exposed.”
Pekel said conversation on the criteria would be revisited during a future board meeting. He said the guidelines were developed in consultation with health experts from Olmsted County and Mayo Clinic.
“We want to be conservative about using them because we would be sending a lot of kids home at that point,” said Pekel.
No vaccine mandate for staff
There will be no vaccine mandate for staff, at least for now.
Pekel attributed the decision to the high rate of vaccination among staff and the resources that would be required to implement a verifiable mandate.
“Our staff who are doing a fantastic job mitigating Covid in our schools would be the same people we would have to diverge to manage this mandate,” said Pekel. “We don’t have other capacity.”
Still, in a memo to the board, Pekel noted there is a chance that Minnesota will be required to implement a vaccine mandate in accordance with federal policy. In that event, Pekel said the district would “be better able to design a local approach after those federal requirements have been announced.”
RPS continues to encourage all staff, parents, and students to get vaccinated. The district says it plans to partner with Olmsted County on additional on-site vaccine clinics in the coming weeks and months.
About 88 percent of school staff have reported being vaccinated.
Disruptions continue
Consistent to what is playing out across the country, Tuesday’s Rochester School Board meeting was met with disruptions from anti-maskers.
A small group attempted to enter the board chambers without face coverings, but was confronted by district staff and law enforcement.
After spending several minutes protesting a menu of conservative grievances, the demonstrators were led out by police.
The School Board has a policy requiring masks in all indoor district facilities, including the board chambers. Individuals who refuse to wear masks during meetings despite repeated requests may be cited for trespassing, and barred from entering the building for one year.
Sean Baker is a Rochester journalist and the founder of Med City Beat.
