BUFFALO, N.Y. — New York State's designation of many parts of Erie County as a COVID-19 Yellow Zone cluster left many school districts scrambling to meet new requirements in order to keep in-person learning intact.
While possible, it's proven to be a daunting challenge. So daunting that several school districts have decided instead to revert to entirely remote learning.
The state requires that to allow students to attend classes in a Yellow Zone, 20% of staff and in-person learners have to be tested for weekly for COVID-19.
Beyond not having the tests, which the state has promised to send, two of the biggest remaining hurdles would then be having the staff to administer the tests, and overcoming restrictions on even being able to conduct them because schools aren't licensed to do that.
"Most communities have said loud and clear they want their kids in school," said Anthony J. Panella, Superintendent of the Amherst Central School District, which is able to meet the requirements due to early planning over the summer.
That was when it secured a contract with Aviana Health Care to provide additional nurses to do the tests. It was also arranged to be included on the Limited Service Lab (LSL) designation of a private firm, thereby essentially providing the district with the license it needed to allow for the tests to be conducted on school property.
"A district can apply for an LSL designation, and we did, but the approval process takes some time," Panella said. "So having the existing partnership with an outside provider that does have the LSL designation helped things move forward significantly."
No Forced Testing
In Amherst the tests will be optional. According to Panella, the district will not test a child without their parents' permission, and they will not exclude a pupil from in-person learning if they don't get tested.
However, they're hoping enough parents will consent to have their children tested for one very important reason.
"If we're unable to meet the 20% threshold set forth by the state, then we will have to go fully remote," he said.
Amherst has also arranged to allow the parents of any child who is tested, to accompany them, which was also a big concern for moms and dads.
County directed to be of more assistance to schools
School districts in Erie County were dismayed when told by the county's health department that it could offer little substantive assistance in their efforts to meet the requirements to continued to allow children to attend classes in person, and that the districts were pretty much on their own.
It was concerning enough for Hamburg Superintendent Mike Cornell, to send a letter to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz on behalf of the Erie-Niagara School Superintendents Association, of which Cornell is the current President.
It suggested that the county could be extremely helpful to schools if would order the tests from the state on behalf of each school district, arrange for their distribution to each district, and allow the districts to begin to conduct testing under the testing license of the Erie County Department of Health as soon as the test kits arrive.
"Erie County's school districts are willing to answer the Governor's call and play our role in the Micro-Cluster Initiative. But we can't do it effectively without your help," Cornell wrote in his letter to Poloncarz, adding, "we are asking you to provide at least the same level of support that the Monroe County Executive has authorized for districts in that county."
On Thursday, the New York State Department of Health revised its guidance on mandatory testing at schools contained within yellow zones, directing counties, including Erie, to now do precisely what Cornell had asked Poloncarz to do.
