Record numbers of COVID-19 cases, vaccination delays and slow contact tracing rates have promoted a further three week delay in students returning to classrooms at Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools.
Superintendent Olwen Herron said students are now unlikely to return to in-person learning until February. Others will stay at home, working remotely. However, a change in state guidelines means the division is likely to allow schools to reopen as soon as coronavirus numbers subside.
Herron detailed the latest delay in a report to the school board on Tuesday. She said the division is working with city and county leaders to establish a COVID-19 vaccination clinic. School nurses have received vaccines but the lack of progress has disappointed Herron.
“We had hoped that widespread vaccinations for phase 1b would have started by now,” she said. “Understandably, the delay in vaccinations is frustrating for members of our community with the alarming number of cases and percent positivity we are seeing each day.”
Herron said the total number of new cases of COVID-19 in James City County has hit 924 cases per 100,000 people with 14.2% of tests proving to be positive.
“That is the highest it has ever been locally,” she said.
Herron said vaccination delays mean the program could stretch into early February for school staff. She said the contract tracing process is also proving lengthy. The need to give teachers a first dose of the vaccine before they return to face-to-face learning pushed back the in-school learning timetable again.
The division now plans to return PreK to grade 3 students and special education students on Feb. 16; grades 4, 5, 6 and 12 on Feb. 22; grades 7, 9 and 11 on March 1; and grades 8 and 10 on March 8. Students who opt to return would be in school two days a week and work virtually for the rest of the week.
“I want to assure you that school is still going on. Our teachers are doing their absolute best to keep students engaged and advance their learning,” Herron told the school. board.
She said remediation will take place through boot camps and a more extensive summer school than usual is planned.
Many parents called for schools to reopen as soon as possible during more than an hour of public comments. However, other speakers urged caution.
“In-person learning needs to be reinstated now,” Amy Coleman said in a voicemail to the public comments section of the meeting.
She said WJCC schools was failing to create an online system that puts the students first. “Many students feel hopeless,” she said.
Coleman and other speakers took issue with the suspension of the winter sports program at a time when other divisions are forging ahead.
“Bring back winter sports and reopen the virtual option for those who don’t want to learn in person and open the schools to those that do,” she said.
Dr. Kristina Powell and Dr. Carrie Dolan, health advisers to the school district, cited a study by Duke University in collaboration with the University of North Carolina that followed 11 school districts in North Carolina. The researchers found transmission rates were low.
Powell cited an increase in mental health disorders experienced by students who remained at home during the pandemic. Of more than 200 clinicians across Virginia, 98% saw rises in childhood and adolescent anxiety, and 95% reported an increase in child and adolescent depression. Other issues included suicidal thoughts, a rise in teen and alcohol use, and elevated levels of obesity during the pandemic.
“We’ve got to look at all of this differently moving forward,” Herron said.
However, the superintendent said COVID numbers would need to start falling before school buildings reopen. If that happens, the three-week delay could be truncated.
“If the data were to go downwards and pretty significantly and stay there, there is no reason why we would not reconsider a new timeline,” Herron said.
“These decisions would be so much easier if we had a more robust public health infrastructure in place around testing and, in particular, contact tracing,” said board member Kyra Cook.
Board member Lisa Ownby said the division reacted to COVID trends in line with its original plan.
“We have always had a plan. We have moved backward but it looks like we are going to move forward again. We are not going to throw in the towel,” Ownby said.
David Macaulay, maccaz17@hotmail.com
