Buffalo, NY (WBEN) With many area school districts reopening to in-class learning and conducting the testing required by New York State, Erie County officials say they have poured over data and come to a general conclusion on the safety of schools during the ongoing COVID pandemic.
"Schools are a safe place."
Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein says positive COVID test rates at schools reflected the community's numbers. "We saw a high at the end of November, and then we started to see a decline just like we saw in the general community," says Burstein.
Burstein says she's been going over test numbers at schools that have been opened, including Akron, Amherst, and Lancaster school districts.
"Over the past two weeks, there have been almost 4,000 tests recorded, and of those, only 17 were positive, so that's positivity rate of .4 percent. That confirms schools and classrooms are a safe place to be," notes Burstein. "What we know with policies schools have been able to adopt, school is a safe place to be for learning, whether it's five days a week or a hybrid schedule." Burstein hopes this will get districts to consider reopening schools.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz says he understand the difficulty of the superintendents' decisions. "No environment can be 100 percent safe. That's why I don't begrudge any of the decisions made by the superintendents," says Poloncarz.
But Poloncarz does have a big worry come January regarding the future of virtual learning centers, and how they will be funded.
"The county put in $15 million in CARES Act funding for those virtual learning centers. That money runs out. There's no money for those virtual learning centers come January," says Poloncarz. He says he informed Buffalo Public Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash about that issue last week. "I'm very worried what's going to happen to those students. There are thousands of students countywide who rely on the virtual learning center because parents have to put them there instead of staying at home because schools aren't open."
Poloncarz says he thought all schools would be open after Christmas break, but if schools stay closed, there's no more county money available to continue those virtual learning centers. "If we had gotten a commitment from the federal government that we were going to $60 to $70 million in aid, we could have put that money going into those centers moving forward. Without that federal money, no virtual learning centers. We've got limited dollars and they'll be spent on the direct response and then vaccinations," warns Poloncarz.
All federal CARES Act funding must be used up by the end of this year.
