Smoother Start For 2nd Covid School Year

Two weeks into the school year, Hamden appears to be rolling with multiple Covid-19 challenges, as families adjust to routines and so far no high-school cases have been reported.

On the first day of school, parents and students had expressed nerves during interviews concerning how Covid-19 would be handled amid the return of in-person classes.

On Wednesday afternoon, more than two weeks later, guardians said they were supremely confident in how teachers and students were mitigating the risks.

“Kids seem to love wearing their masks!” said Marty Edwards, who has two daughters aged 3 and 4 attending preschool at Alice Peck.

Peter Simcik, father of Shepherd Glen’s second-grader Peter Simcik, moved to Hamden from the Czech Republic in July. His son, he said, is still learning English; most of the words he knows are basic vocabulary picked up from video games.

But the transition has been surprisingly smooth, even with masks and social distancing. Simcik said he was grateful that his full family was able to get vaccinated upon arrival. The Czech Republic was among the first European countries to impose mask mandates, so he said his family is used to covering their faces.

If anything, Covid-19 ironically helped his son adjust to his new life in America. That’s because federal aid distributed to schools in order to help them adjust to the pandemic resulted in free summer programming for all Hamden students. Peter attended camp throughout July and August, where he was able to practice English by reading children’s books and to meet other kids his age, many of whom were also learning English.

Fifteen students and teachers have tested positive for Covid-19 across Hamden public schools throughout the first three weeks of school, according to Marsha Guglielmino, Hamden schools’ lead nurse. She added that those individual instances have led to 12 classroom shutdowns across elementary schools and early learning programs since Aug. 30.

Four of those cases have popped up at the middle school, two at the high school, and six across two different elementary schools: Dunbar Hill has reported five cases and Spring Glen two.

Three of the fifteen people who tested positive were teachers. Gary Highsmith, Hamden schools’ director of human resources, noted that according to a poll surveying 700 of Hamden’s school faculty and staff, 94 percent said they were vaccinated.

An additional 400 did not respond to the questionnaire. But Sept. 14 marked the deadline for all 1,100 teachers and staff to send in proof of vaccination; anyone who is choosing not to get vaccinated must get tested on a weekly basis. Highsmith said he predicts that once he verifies vaccine documentation for all of those individuals, around 90 percent will be fully vaxxed.

By Sept. 27, any school staff or faculty who do not have proof of medical, spiritual, or religious exemption from getting the vaccine will be required to have received at least one dose in order to continue working in schools. That’s part of a state mandate imposed by Gov. Lamont on Aug. 19.

Guglielmino heads contact tracing across schools. She said that full classrooms have closed down only at the elementary level. That is partly because both contact tracing and social distancing are easier when dealing with older students.

Given that there are no remote learning options for students this year, Superintendent Jody Goeler said that his primary priority is avoiding unnecessarily quarantining students. That’s not always possible: 181 students have been quarantined at the middle school this month after four Covid-19 cases came to the Guglielmino’s attention. Goeler said that 80 percent of those quarantine cases were necessary because parents significantly delayed informing the school system that their child tested positive.

“It is very important for parents to monitor their children’s health and to keep them home when they have symptoms, are waiting for test results or have tested positive,” Goeler said.

While students were required to quarantine for 14 days if exposed to Covid-19 last year, federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines currently state that kids can go back to school if they get a negative test on their fifth day of isolation. Additionally, students are now sent into quarantine only if they spend 15 minutes or longer near an infected person while less than three feet apart. Last year, students were quarantined for spending the same amount of time within six feet of someone with Covid-19.

In general, Guglielmino said that lunch breaks, bus rides, and gym classes are the only times during the day during which students face relatively higher risks of spreading the virus. During class hours, students are distanced three feet apart. Passing times in crowded hallways are closer to five minutes than 15.

Instead, Guglielmino asserted that the majority of students who test positive are contracting the virus outside of school. The same was true last year, she said. Halloween parties and sporting events were responsible for many of the youth Covid-19 cases Hamden saw last year. This month, Guglielmino pinpointed unvaccinated family members and out-of-state summer vacations as responsible for most occurrences of Covid-19 among children.

“Whatever’s prevalent in our community overflows into our schools,” Guglielmino summarized.

All in all, fewer students are quarantining for shorter periods of time this year. Goeler said the biggest Covid-related issues facing Hamden schools are national shortages in school staff and bus drivers.

David Abate, president of the Hamden teachers union, said the school system is handling labor shortages with careful consideration for current staff and faculty. Buses are still up to an hour late each day, but any teacher who ​“wants to stay after” school can do so for a contractual rate on a voluntary basis by seniority, Abate said.

He said the school administration has been ​“very transparent” about the issues facing the district, which has in turn allowed for straightforward and collaborative problem solving across and between schools.

With students at home without hybrid schooling options, Goeler said he is working on hiring more social workers and tutors to offer academic and social support for students across Hamden. All students who are sent home for sickness have access to assignments on Google Classroom, Goeler said.

Eric Scoville, director of communications for the State Department of Education, pointed out that all students across Connecticut should have access to free digital curricula for credit accumulation, recovery, and enrichment via Apex Learning and Defined Learning. Those are two educational platforms that the state is providing to all districts for free in hopes of lessening learning disparities between municipalities during the remainder of the pandemic.

Jennifer Borgee, whose 3‑year-old daughter, Charlee, attends pre‑K at Alice Peck, said she relies on free early childhood services to pay her bills.

Borgee contracted Covid-19 last November while working in St. Vincent’s hospital. By the time she became symptomatic, her daughter had also caught it. ​“It was a miserable experience,” she said. ​“I don’t recommend it. I’m just now getting my taste and smell back.”

While Charlee was only sick for about three days, Borgee, a single mother, missed countless days of work while her mother took care of her in a full hazmat suit.

Now that she’s vaccinated, and now that Charlee is a year older, the risks of getting seriously sick seem lower and the impacts of missing school are greater.

“This allows me to work,” she said, buckling Charlee into the backseat at 4:30. ​“And it’s such a pivotal time for her. She’s learning speech, how to play, and how to learn.”

“It can be scary,” she reflected of in-person schooling. ​“But it’s a necessity.”