Emergency Meeting Information Memo 11092021

To: WPS School Committee
From: Jim Hodgkin

RE: COVID considerations
Date: November 8, 2021
We are now in our 11th week of school and we have implemented every strategy that is
recommended to slow down the spread of COVID-19 in our schools. As you may recall from
our meeting in August, we were hopeful that the Delta Variant would come and go fairly
quickly. That is what we were told could happen by our medical professionals. I believe that we
have made every effort to keep as many children in school as we can. I feel that our staff have
gone way above and beyond to do their jobs, which are more difficult this year than last year.
We have worked very close with Maine CDC to strategize ways to slow down the spread of
COVID. For conversation purposes, here are things for you to think about in no particular order:
1. The number of positive cases in Winthrop has been in double digits since September 12th.
This is the number of cases for the town, not the school. However, this is an example of
community spread, which creates a huge challenge for the schools.
2. The Winthrop Schools have implemented every CDC recommendation to try and slow
down the spread of COVID-19. This includes universal masking, distancing, assigned
seating, sanitizing, pool testing, and air quality improvements. None of these strategies
are going to cure or stop COVID. Rather, they are strategies to slow down the spread of
COVID. Pool testing, masking, distancing, sanitizing, ventilation are all strategies to
slow down the spread of COVID, not cures. Presently, the CDC outbreak team contact
says that Winthrop is in the top five schools in terms of spread of the sixty schools that
she works with. Area schools are starting to shut down including RSU 73, Lewiston MS,
part of Mt. Abram HS, and Richmond (no busses due to COVID)
3. We are very much in the middle of this pandemic, not near the end. No one can tell us
how long this will last or when we can start to relax our protocols. While we are hopeful
that COVID will become less deadly and more “flu-like”, that is not where we are at this
time. There are new cases and new deaths every day. While there are certainly people
who do not believe this data, we cannot even begin to subscribe to that kind of thinking.
Millions of people have died to date from COVID.
4. The Winthrop Public Schools do not make decisions related to COVID in isolation. Our
system reached outbreak status within the first three weeks of school. Last year, the CDC
would have shut us down. In fact, we have surpassed outbreak status in the grade school
multiple times and in the high school at least once. The CDC goal and our goal has been
to keep our schools open as much as possible. Every time that we have a positive case,
there is a consultation with the CDC outbreak team and, together, a decision is made.
The Winthrop School Committee voted before school started to follow the
recommendations of the Maine CDC and we have.
5. There are no “silver bullets” or cures for schools. We are doing everything that we can to
slow down the spread. Pool testing is a strategy to reduce the number of students who
need to quarantine and it has worked. But it is not 100% depending on the circumstance.
Pool testing does not cover community spread. Therefore, if a student is considered a
close contact from a community spread, they still need to quarantine. This could be any
community event or activity such as scouts, daycare, the “YMCA program”, etc.
6. Our goal is to slow the spread and right now it feels like we are not doing that. We need
to consider other options. The CDC is saying that we should consider an extended
closing of the school. We could add days to the end of the school calendar or go remote
without adding days.
7. The best information available to us suggests that relaxing any of the strategies to slow
down the spread will only increase the number of cases. This is not the time to consider
doing that.
8. Our staff are feeling an exceptional high level of stress. We had hoped that the Delta
Variant would start to subside by this time, but that has not happened. Therefore,
teachers and other school personnel have had to put in extra time to prepare for students
who are in quarantine. The most challenging scenario is that teachers need to teach the
students in front of them and prepare and/or deliver instruction for students who are
quarantined. Our nurses and administrators are working late nights and weekends to deal
with COVID issues and contact tracing.
9. The Winthrop community has been exceptionally supportive of our schools and our staff.
However, they are stressed with dealing with quarantined children while trying to
maintain their jobs. That is the biggest reason that we have not had full closures to this
point. However, that may be unavoidable moving forward.
10. We have been saying (as has the CDC) that our schools are the safest place for our
students and staff to be. However, the spread has not slowed down and the stress is
growing exponentially.
Options
1. Do nothing at this time. We have already changed November 22nd and 23rd to remote
days.
2. Change November 22nd and 23rd to “no school” days and add them to the end of the
school year.
3. Make the week of Nov. 15-19 remote in addition to November 22 and 23.
4. Make the week of Nov. 29- Dec. 3 remote as parents and children may have travelled out
of state or mixed cohorts due to Thanksgiving.
5. Starting January 5th, make all Wednesdays an early release (2 hours), except weeks that
are not five days.
Other Considerations
1. Make Kid’s Club a school sponsored activity and require them to follow all guidelines
from the school moving forward as we are not confident the guidelines have been
followed.

Emergency Meeting Information Memo 11092021

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Emergency Meeting Information Memo 11092021

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

To: WPS School Committee

From: Jim Hodgkin

You might also like