SWAMPSCOTT — The school district has signed on to a new COVID-19 testing program that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) is rolling out this week for students whose parents opt in for weekly, at-home antigen tests instead of the Test and Stay program and contact tracing.
“DESE is trying really hard to keep us in school and to give these alternatives and options of testing,” Superintendent of Schools Pamela Agelakis told the School Committee. “That will free up our nurses a little bit.”
Under the new program, the staff of participating districts and students whose parents sign them up will receive two at-home testing kits once every two weeks, regardless of vaccination status. The districts will continue pool testing, thus allowing each student to take a COVID-19 test twice a week ― one at school and one t at home.
If an individual tests positive with an at-home antigen test, they are required to inform the school of the positive result. Under the Test and Stay program, students and educators who had been exposed to COVID-19 at school had to test negative daily for five to seven days to be able to remain in class.
Angelakis said the decision was not made in isolation. Swampscott Public Schools lead nurse Emily Cilley, occupational health nurse Amanda Mulcahy, and Angelakis held a meeting with the nurses and had the nurse department decide whether or not they wanted to opt into this program as a district.
The first testing kits are expected to arrive within the next two weeks and the district will start the new program by the end of February, Angelakis said. Until then, the district will continue to practice Test and Stay and contact tracing.
The DESE announced the new testing program on Jan. 18, reasoning that K-12 schools were safe environments where testing was performed regularly and individual positivity rates were significantly lower than the statewide positivity rate. According to DESE, the secondary transmission rate was 2.9 percent, and the tertiary transmission was very low based on a pre-publication study of the first 13 weeks of the Test and Stay program across all participating Massachusetts schools.
As of Jan. 9, 503,312 Test and Stay tests had been conducted and 496,440 of them were negative (98.6 percent). That is why DESE came to the conclusion that individuals identified as close contacts in school are very unlikely to contract or spread COVID-19.
“Therefore, extensive contact tracing and associated Test and Stay procedures are not adding significant value as a mitigation strategy despite the demand they place on the time of school health staff and school staff at large,” said the DESE memorandum on the new COVID-19 testing program option for K-12 schools from Jan. 18.
Those districts that signed up by Jan. 21 were supposed to receive tests for their staff last week and tests for students during the week of Jan. 31.
DESE expects the updated testing options to remain in place from Jan. 31 to Apr. 22. The department said it will determine if any updates to the program are needed beyond Apr. 22 and provide the update to the districts throughout the early spring.
Meanwhile, Swampscott schools have been struggling with the staff shortage.
“If anyone thinks that this is an easier year, this isn’t,” said Angelakis. “This is almost worse now because we are in person; we are committed to being in person and we don’t have the personnel resources that we typically have.”
Last week, she said that the district was still in a substitute crisis, due to the January surge in COVID-19 cases.
“We are still having a tremendous amount of staff impacted and infected with the Omicron (variant of) coronavirus, not just the teachers, we have ESP (Education Support Professionals) and tutors, and also my leadership team,” said Angelakis. “On average, there are about 31 staff members out in our district.”
Positive cases among students showed a downward trend on Jan. 27. The number of district students with reported positive cases from Jan. 20 to Jan. 26 amounted to 40 individuals. In the previous weeks, this number was 52 for Jan. 19 to Jan. 13; 115 for Jan. 12 to Jan. 6.; and 117 for Jan. 5 to Dec. 23.
