SURVEILLANCE VIRAL TESTING PILOT FOR NEWTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS – PARENT SURVEY
A group of scientists/physicians/parents are engaged in the “Safer Teachers, Safer Students: Back-to-School SARs-CoV-2 testing collaborative”. This is a growing group of MA towns who are launching pilot programs to develop a comprehensive, coordinated infrastructure for surveillance (asymptomatic) viral testing of preK-12 staff/students to detect and reduce viral transmission and help our schools to open successfully and remain open.
They are seeking your (Newton Parent) input on a pilot viral testing program for Newton Public Schools.
This survey is completely anonymous and will remain open until Midnight on 09/21/2020.
To enable us to get accurate results, PLEASE submit ONLY ONE response per family.
I agree
Anyone know who is affiliated with this group? I did not see a listing of scientists/physicians/parents.
So important to test-and-trace if we are going to send our kids back to school safely and expect to keep our schools open. Without a rigorous program we are putting students and educators at risk, which puts the community as a whole at risk. This sort of initiative is what the schools should have been spearheading and embracing, as they have in neighboring school districts.
Kudos to this group for trying to tackle this difficult issue as well as trying to address the means to finance it. I particularly like that it is potentially a consortium of towns which should help drive costs down and not have a dozen small groups trying to essentially do the same thing in every adjacent town.
As a parent of a high school’er who would very much like to get back to school and the husband of a wife who is in multiple Covid high risk categories – I think substantial and regular testing in the schools is the only way to square this circle.
From what I understand there is no routine testing for staff, faculty, and students. This is ludicrous that this is not in place. Can someone explain how this is sensical? I am not sure who is driving the bus, but it isn’t going to be pretty when it inevitably crashes.
I believe this is the group wanting to work with the Broad Institute. Parents have spoken at SC meetings about this and forwarded the information to NPS multiple times. It is the single biggest contention that the NTA has with reopening “plan”- there is no testing plan in place what so ever. Kids and staff will walk into school tomorrow with no idea who is asymptomatic or even who may have a temperature.
With the definition that NPS is using and interpreting quite literally from the verbiage release by DESE, a “close contact” at school is anyone who is within 6ft of a person for more than 10 minutes. The school is required to report to any close contacts if a person has tested positive for COVID. Using this strict definition, NO ONE is a close contact at school since desks are 6ft apart and kids and teachers aren’t supposed to remove masks. Do you want your child to sit in the front row and have a student two rows back test positive and never receive notice?
To send kids, teachers, nurses, and other staff into schools without this in place feels like negligence. I also can’t imagine elementary schools staying open without testing to isolate cases.
I also don’t know who’s driving the bus, but all Newton residents want kids back in school. The “only when its safe” group and the “open high schools now” group want the same thing- and they want it to be safe. Parents and kids holding protests should focus on how to fix the problem of schools opening: safety protocols, testing, and air ventilation. Newton residents need to be working together and not against each other.
As somebody who would open all schools in Newton, tomorrow, without testing healthy, asymptomatic kids, I support the efforts of this surveillance testing group.
The teachers simply won’t go back to schools without more testing and this is our most realistic path to get it.
The only other alternative is to wait until a critical mass of other districts go back to school without problems and, even then, you will have a large cohort who will insist that Newton is different.
If you want school, support testing and be willing to pay for it.
And when your ( hypothetical) 8th grader tests positive then what? Does her sister go to school, or get tested every day? Do you now go to work? Do you get tested every day? Does your eighth grader have to stay in their room fo4 2 weeks while you slide food under the door?
No. What happens is the cases become exponentially and the school has to shut down.
It’s happening at colleges right now.
There is NO WAY to open safely. Sorry.
@Rich Frank – You say “It’s happening at colleges now”
. I’d say “it’s happening at SOME colleges now”. So far though many colleges are doing fine. The ones that are doing fine are being very agressive about testing, detecting any new cases QUICKLY and dealing with them before there is any widespread outbreak.
Colleges have only been back for a few weeks. I think we’ll know quite a but more in a few more weeks about what’s working and what’s not.
Rick,
The reason for this testing is to protect teachers. My 7th grader has been playing with her friends and doing sports for 4 months now, like many kids in Newton. If you haven’t noticed kids have been living their lives as normal all summer.
But in your hypothetical, if the 8th grader tests positive she will not go back to school for a while. Her sister would also get tested and would potentially miss some school as well.
Since everybody at school will be masked and socially distanced, they will all be fine.
Unless you are suggesting that masks don’t work?
I’m not suggesting masks don’t work. I’m questioning a couple of things:
The 8th grader would have to be remote schooled and isolated at home until tests are negative.
The odds of his sister or his parents getting it are quite a bit higher, and so the parents would also need to be tested.
I guess I would also look for a numerate definition of “safe”. We say or some people say that the schools can be open safely. But what exactly does that mean? Does it mean that the death rate of teachers is no higher than normal death rate per school year? Or the parental death rate? Let’s say hypothetically one teacher dies on average per year of any cause.Are we willing to risk five teachers dying? I just think that no one knows the answer so to just say that we can open the schools safely is just to wish that we can. The experts are extrapolating and as a mathematical construct extrapolation is extremely dangerous.
No one likes to look at the evidnece. The evidence from countries that have opened up their schools is that frequency of COVID19 cases among teachers is no different from the general population. There have been no documented cases of a pupil to teacher transmissions in the world. Yes, there have been a few cases of teacher-teacher transmissions, but going forward we know how to control it.
There is a huge societal cost of shutting down the schools. Going to school has always been risky. You can get hit by a car crossing the street. If you don’t want to accept any risk, don’t go to school, don’t swim, don’t drive, don’t ride a bicycle, don’t interact with anyone, etc.
If anyone has real evidence of material risks to students or teachers that outweigh the risk and costs of put kids in basements in front of a screen, let’s hear it.
The point is there’s no definition of ” safe”. Saying we can open schools safely has no meaning other than wishing it so. The reality will be known in a few months, but extrapolating out even based on other countries data – perhaps the best one can do – is just a guess.
But more to the point, the school had better have a deep reservoir of substitute teachers.
For high needs students who will be in the buildings full days, there are 30 minutes of each day where students eat together, indoors when the weather is not cooperative, unmasked. This may be the most worrisome time. Even with distancing, no masks indoors means more chance for spread. https://www.livescience.com/restaurant-dining-covid-19-risk.html
Seconding Elmo – who exactly is asking for this and who are they working for/with? Until that information is available, I’m uncertain what the point of a non-scientific, Volunteer only survey is.
/personal opinion. As always.