BUFFALO, N.Y. — While school superintendents and other administrators have been on the hot seat in working out school reopening plans, health care professionals have been working hard to make sure those plans make sense and can be carried out to keep kids safe.
In the Niagara Falls School District, Nurse Practitioner Jo Ann Silvaroli is the medical director who also supervises the corps of registered and licensed practical nurses. They are based in the district's schools and must oversee in- school care for over 7,000 students.
Their pandemic policy calls for parents to make sure their kids are screened and healthy at home before they would attend any in class session days.
But what happens if a child gets sick in school with suspected COVID symptoms? Silvaroli says teachers have to know as well because they may be the first line of defense with notification.
"We'll be doing a webinar to teach our teachers the signs and symptoms that they should be looking out for," Silvaroli said. "If any students complain of any of them the school nurse will be called."
Then they would be taken to the nurse's office and escorted to a separate room.
"We are determining a second room which would be an isolation room where the child could be able to rest in while waiting for the parent to pick them up," Silvaroli said. "The child will then be sent home to the parent, and under NYS Department of Health guidelines, they will see their own primary care doctor. And I think it's still in determination but they will probably need a COVID test."
Nurses would also assist the county health department with contact tracing. And they have the experience with the illness.
Silvaroli points out, "We have a lot of our nurses who actually work in the hospitals and emergency rooms so they're very aware of the signs and symptoms and how to care for a student."
Silvaroli has also assisted Superintendent Mark Laurrie and other district leaders in some policy considerations. Take for example the so called hybrid class system, blending in-class and remote learning for Niagara Falls. Half the district's students would be at school for Monday and Tuesday while the other half would be in school for Thursday and Friday. With only remote classes on Wednesday, a student from the first group who got infected wouldn't be in school around other kids for up to five days. While it also provides required spacing in classrooms, that scheduling suggestion has a dual purpose.
"The way that COVID acts is we usually start to see some signs and symptoms on days three through five during which they would automatically be home being monitored by their parents," Silvaroli said. "So that would give us a lesser chance of having to close down classrooms or buildings."
It also builds in a five day turnaround window for COVID testing if needed in a suspected infection case for a student.
Another medical based formula would be how much of an outbreak could force a school shutdown. That's obviously a very difficult decision to make. First they'll look at actual class enrollment.
Silvaroli says here is what follows, "We're gonna make a determination based on a pre-prescribed absenteeism. So we're going to take the amount of children and we are going to some calculations to find out at what point we should closedown schools. And of course we're always going to stay on the side of safety."
It's an educated guess based on science if you will, which is much of what we've see with COVID.
