BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) – When schools were preparing to reopen for in-person learning, they had to come up with a plan to address testing in case there is an outbreak.
Most schools in Erie County planned to partner with the local department of health to accommodate testing needs, but feel they are now being left hanging by the county.
"During that planning the Erie County Department of Health confirmed that they would be our testing partner in the event that any testing was required during reopening," a letter written by the Erie Niagara School Superintendents Association read. "This commitment was memorialized in each school district's reopening plan. This commitment was affirmed multiple times since the advent of the Micro-Cluster Initiative, which clearly outlines the important role that local health departments should play if schools were placed into a 'yellow zone.' On the weekend prior to the Governor's announcement of Western New York's 'yellow zone', ECDOH indicated that they were told by you to that the county would not keep its commitment to being our partner under the Governor's Micro-Cluster Initiative."
New York's department of health is supposed to provide rapid testing kids for the virus to local health departments, hospitals, pharmacies, and other health care providers. Schools within a yellow zone are told by the state to contact the local health department to make arrangements for deployment of these tests in their school.
But in Erie County, there's a shortage of rapid tests. County Executive Mark Poloncarz said they have less than 1,000 of the tests that only take a few minutes to yield a result. They have more than 350,000 of the diagnostic tests, but those take multiple days to get a positive or negative result.
"We're expecting more (rapid tests) to come in but not enough to handle everything we want," Poloncarz said.
Schools are worried about the costs associated with testing 20 percent of their population. Ken-Ton Schools said it would cost them $10,000 per week. Niagara Falls Schools, which is outside the cluster zone, said it would cost them $72,000 per month if they had to test 20 percent of their population.
But Poloncarz, and the state guidelines, wants schools to know that it should be free to them.
"Other than the costs associated with having the nurse or doctor there to administer it, which they already have on staff,…there should be no cost to the test," Poloncarz said. "Earlier this year, Erie County provided more than $15 million to the school districts in Erie County to assist with costs. It was also supposed to be used for the costs associated with testing."
The county executive said the rules have been set by the state and didn't change once Erie County was designated as a cluster area.
"We've expressed this continually to the school district representatives, at least the superintendents," Poloncarz said. "If they're going out there and saying something different, that's not good because we've told them they're going to get free tests. They have to request the tests from the New York State Department of Health."
The ENSSA's letter to Poloncarz asks him to reconsider the partnership between the county and school districts. It notes that many districts are contracting with private health care firms to administer the tests and applied for temporary medical testing licenses. It also asks Erie County to order the tests on behalf of each school district and arrange for their distribution.
"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," the letter said.
