Wake school board discusses COVID-19 testing program and recommended new protocols

The testing program, which would require parental consent for children to participate, was one of several new measures discussed Tuesday to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The board did not take up a vote on any of the items. The board did vote to continue its universal mask mandate indoors, a vote it’s now required to hold each month under the new State Law 2021-130.

The vote allows the district to continue to add on to the policy when circumstances and documented health needs arise, such as what officials did when they required masks during outdoor athletic activities late last month.

After Board Members Karen Carter and Roxie Cash raised concerns about the district having authority beyond what the school board has decided for masking requirements, the board approved an amendment that requires the district o notify the board of changes. Carter voted against the amendment, calling “documented health needs” overly broad, though she supports the indoor mask mandate.

The previous mask mandate also allowed the district to add on to the policy, but some board members missed that, as it was not originally written down in the proposal and was only suggested orally during the meeting.

During a work session Tuesday afternoon, Duke University Professor of Pediatrics Dr. Danny Benjamin, who helps lead the Collaborative, urged vaccination requirements, stating the vaccine was the most effective way of reducing COVID-19 transmission and resulting severe illness or death.

“It’s the strongest scientific merit,” he told the board.

Vaccine requirements ensure people will get vaccinated, he said, because widespread vaccination against other illnesses hasn’t happened voluntarily.

Board members did not discuss the vaccine requirement in depth during the work session but asked several questions about COVID-19 monitoring, quarantine protocols, masking of athletes and masking at recess.

So far, 88.5% of district employees who have responded to a district survey say they are fully vaccinated. Another 1% say they are partially vaccinated. The district is waiting to hear from about 3,800 employees.

Carter asked Benjamin about any research on wearing masks during sporting events, particularly outdoors in the heat, and Board Member Chris Heagarty asked Benjamin about how precautions at recess could affect children’s activity.

The board and district have talked about how one of the advantages of having children in the school building, versus learning remotely, was the potential improvements to their health from activities at school.

“If we can’t have recess, do we lose that?” Heagarty asked.

Benjamin said research is limited on the efficacy of wearing masks during recess but board members can consider how far apart children will be during recess.

Carter also asked about whether COVID-19 vaccination requirements at other employers had resulted in attrition from those employers. Benjamin said he doesn’t know, stating that the large majority of employee vaccine mandates he’s aware of have yet to reach their deadlines for employees to get vaccinated.

Major school districts in other states, such as the Philadelphia and New York City school systems, have recently announced vaccine requirements for teachers, with compliance deadlines later this fall.

Carter and Heagarty said they worried about about losing staff, as the district already struggles to hire, because of a mandate. Carter said she wasn’t ready to support a mandate.

The Wake County school district will consider removing its mask mandate with a vaccination rate of 70% to 90% of students and staff, officials told the school board Tuesday.

That’s one metric the district is considering in its decision-making processes, said Paul Koh, assistant superintendent for student support services.

The district is also hoping for “significant” declining rate of COVID-19 cases for four straight weeks and for a seven-day average of 10 COVID-19 cases or fewer per 100,000 Wake County residents.

But those three goals won’t automatically trigger a change in COVID-19 policies.

“All three will be used and given the weight needed based on the circumstances,” the district’s presentation reads.

The board also discussed screening testing for COVID-19 at schools. Currently, 244 schools and school districts are participating in the states’ COVID-19 testing program, which is federally funded. Wake County is not, though several other large districts, such as Charlotte-Mecklenberg and Durham, are.

Districts are asked to apply by Sept. 13 to participate in the state’s program.

Keith Sutton, who is also interim superintendent of the Warren County school system, recommended the district pursue a screening testing program via a contractor, having begun implementation of it, with parental consent for students, in his own district.

There aren’t many good options to slow down the spread of highly transmissible virus, he said.

“Testing and vaccinations is about it, if you’re going to have any chance to slow it down,” he said.

Board member Jim Martin said a voluntary testing program would be a minimum precaution.

“It strikes me as a non-brainer,” he said.

Superintendent Cathy Moore urged board members to send district leaders questions they want answered on a possible testing program, so leaders can bring forward a possible recommendation for a testing program at a future meeting. Testing of students would require parental consent in any proposal.

Benjamin mentioned testing as a measure of mitigating COVID-19 spread, though he stressed vaccines and masks for those not yet old enough to be vaccinated.

Benjamin noted that the death rate for children ages 5 to 17 from COVID-19, among those who contract it, is lower than children’s death rate from influenza, among those who contract it. But COVID-19 is more transmissible than the flu, and Benjamin emphasized that children can still get sick and, worse, spread it to adults who can get even more sick.

Hospitalizations from COVID-19 are around their highest levels in North Carolina and nationwide.

“Locally major institutions nearby are at the point that they are stopped elective admissions and elective procedures,” he said. “That is an astounding step.”

So far, the Wake County school board has only passed a mask mandate for a COVID-19 protocol, but individual schools have set varying protocols for things like lunch, locker use or sanitation to curb COVID-19 spread.

Schools are continuing to work on their operations, such as buying tents for outdoor lunch. Some parent-teacher associations have tried to buy tents for outdoor lunch or air purifiers for their schools, while the district has been allotted million of dollars, some already spent, on safety measures.

“I think it’s great that PTAs want to support,” Superintendent Cathy Moore said, but the district has an obligation to provide what schools need and to make sure every school has access to what they need.

“We have funds available, we put the RFPs out, we’re ordering everything that we can find,” Moore said.

In late August, the Wake County Public School System announced some changes to its COVID-19 protocols and some additional protocols officials are weighing in response to rapidly rising COVID-19 cases in the county.

After the first days of school, district officials announced they were identifying more spaces for children to eat so they can be more spread out and requiring administration at schools with COVID-19 clusters to monitor compliance with the district’s mask mandate.

Officials said they were considering regular COVID-19 testing for student-athletes and for employees, as well as requiring masks outdoors on campus.

It’s an effort to reduce quarantines, officials say. Nearly 1,300 students were in quarantine last week, less than 1% of the district’s 160,000-student population. That was up from about 700 students during the first week of traditional calendar school, the week before.

Division over COVID-19 protocols once against resulted in dozens of public comments, mostly written and many delivered in-person. Many reflected frustrations around the realities of quarantine and current requirements.

Some parents were concerned that inadequate monitoring of health protocols increased the number of students who had to quarantine, even if they were wearing masks.

One wrote that not requiring teachers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 could result in unvaccinated teachers — likelier to spread COVID-19 than vaccinated ones — contributing to students needing to quarantine.

“This is inequitable learning compared to other classrooms, where a vaccinated teacher is able to be consistently present,” they wrote.

Other parents were frustrated around quarantine requirements, which are set by the county health department.

“Children are afraid to go to school with allergies because they’re afraid they’ll get sent home for COVID,” Lana Witt, a parent, told the board.

The county health department calls for quarantining when exposed to COVID-19 except for fully vaccinated people without symptoms and students who were properly wearing a mask when exposed by another person who was properly wearing a mask.

Several board members asked questions Tuesday about what the quarantine requirements were in certain scenarios and why they varied from requirements elsewhere.

Board Member Roxie Cash said she wanted to do more to reduce quarantines.

“I think we’re quarantining far too many kids,” she said.

The district is still prioritizing the lowest number of quarantines in its COVID-19 protocols.

“We’re doing a good job with the quarantines, but we’re just so large it’s always a large number,” Moore said. “But we need to do more.”