Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, along with New York State Commissioner of Health, Mary T. Bassett, spoke virtually with school superintendents from all across the state on Tuesday to provide the latest updates for districts regarding a number of COVID-19 related issues.
"She spent a good amount of time expressing her appreciation for the work that folks in schools are doing to help keep schools safe and keep schools open, and making sure that kids are learning in school and we're meeting the social and emotional needs of kids in school," said Hamburg Superintendent and President of the Erie-Niagara School Superintendents Association, Michael Cornell on Tuesday. "She spent a good amount of her time saying thank you, which was certainly appreciated by everyone who attended."
However, the main topics brought up for discussion by the Governor on Tuesday included the distribution of free at-home COVID-19 tests for students across the state, and the critical nature of keeping kids in school.
"She talked about a plan that she and the folks at the state level have been working on over the last couple of days, to distribute tests to school districts so that we can make them available for free to the families of our school-aged children to use if they want to before students return to school on Monday, if we get them in time," Cornell said. "The state's going to make them available to school districts through the regional BOCES, and then we would make them available to families, if we can, prior to Monday. We'll do that, if we have them in time. If not, then we'll make them available to families on Monday."
"The intention from the state, depending on a lot of factors - mainly supply chain and distribution - was to put in the hands of school districts enough tests to test every child before they return to school next week," said Niagara Falls City School District Superintendent, Mark Laurrie on Tuesday.
However, Laurrie knows that with a request that large in such a short amount of time, there becomes plenty of logistical issues for school districts. That is especially the case for a district the size of Niagara Falls.
"While I applaud the Governor's initiative, the devil is in the details of how that actually can get done, and the logistics around it," Laurrie said.
"I think where there's some major concerns, at least as I heard it, was that when you expect to put a test in a backpack of a child on Monday. That's, in my opinion, getting a baseline of every student. I just don't know if that's feasible or even possible for many, many reasons."
While this has come very fast for many districts across the state, it is expected there will be another call with superintendents on Wednesday to discuss how to execute the intention of the state. The general reaction from superintendents of Tuesday's chat Gov. Hochul is of appreciation for the effort by the state to put free tests in the hands of families.
"Rapid antigen tests are pretty hard to come by these days," Cornell said. "If you've gone to the store to try to buy one, they're difficult to buy. So the families of school-aged children across the state are going to have the rapid antigen tests, one per-child, that they can use if they feel like they need to do it, to use it as an added layer of protection.
"There's an appreciation for the intention of the Governor, and then also an appreciation for the difficulty of the task to try and get these distributed before Monday - if we get them in time - and the difficulty of getting them distributed as soon as possible after Monday, if that's when we get them."
At the same time, other superintendents have concerns with the baseline testing for everybody once students return to school come Jan. 3.
"I don't know how it can occur," Laurrie said. "I understand the thinking behind it, but that has a lot of built in assumptions that I think are just impossible to overcome in a short period of time. ... I think baseline testing every student is not where we want to be at. I just don't think it's realistic."
One school that has expressed their concerns and that will take some time to make an announcement of back to school plans after the holiday break is the Buffalo Public School District. Superintendent Dr. Kriner Cash released a statement late Tuesday afternoon saying the district will review the updated plans from Gov. Hochul with their school board and medical team before formalizing any plans. An announcement is expected some time on Wednesday.
As schools wait for their expected arrival of at-home testing kits for students, Cornell asks of families to be patient during this time as the districts sort things out on short notice.
"Families are not going to hear from their school district tonight, or tomorrow, or maybe even Thursday they may not hear from their school district about the distribution of these tests, because we may not have enough information to communicate with our communities about it," he said. We don't know when the tests are coming. We think they're coming this week, but no body knows that for sure. We don't know what brand they're going to be, we know they're going to be a rapid antigen test. We don't know if all of the Erie County tests are going to come all at one time. There may be five districts that get their tests on Thursday, and another eight that get theirs on Friday. There's a lot we don't know.
"As soon as school districts know that they have them to distribute, districts will be in touch with families and let them know."
Meanwhile, Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein announced on Tuesday the county will expand its "test-to stay" program to all schools that are interested in the county. This comes after the CDC's endorsement of "test-to-stay" back on Dec. 17 as a method of helping to keep kids in schools.
As for when schools in Erie County can expect the "test-to-stay" program to become available for their district, Cornell believes it going to be "relatively soon."
"We're still working with the Erie County Department of Health and the County Executive's office to make that available as soon as humanly possible," Cornell said. "Based on our conversations with the County Executive's office, County Executive [Mark Poloncarz] understands the sense of urgency school districts have to get 'test-to-stay' up-and-running as soon as possible, and add some confidence that we'll be up-and-running very quickly when we get back to school next week."
In Niagara County, Laurrie also expects to see "test-to-stay" programs in the near future, which will certainly be a welcomed relief for parents wanting to keep their kids in school.
"I think it's possible and doable, and a good idea to keep kids who don't need to be quarantined in school while they're testing three times in seven days," Laurrie said. "We have begun talking about that, and I think those details can be worked on in a short order. ... I think 'test-to-stay' is something that can be reasonably done in the next two weeks once we return."
Just one school in Erie County has utilized a "test-to-stay" program in a pilot phase since the start of December. That district is Grand Island, and the reviews of the program at the district have been described as a major success.
Cornell says he's been in constant contact with Grand Island Superintendent, Dr. Brian Graham, and their pilot phase of "test-to-stay" went great. However, Cornell was confident that Grand Island and Erie County did not need a pilot program to know that "test-to-stay" works.
"'Test-to-stay' has been used in Massachusetts and Utah since the beginning of the school year," Cornell said. "The Erie-Niagara School Superintendents Association and the New York State Council of School Superintendents has been advocating for 'test-to-stay' across the state since September. 'Test-to-stay' has been working beautifully in Monroe County since Dec. 6, right down the Thruway. So it should be no surprise that 'test-to-stay' worked in Grand Island."
Also of note from Tuesday's COVID-19 briefing with Erie County, Poloncarz stated that the Omicron variant has been around the region for, likely, more than three weeks, despite the first detection of the variant being formally announced last week.
While the Omicron variant has reportedly not been as potent as other variants of COVID-19 in the past, it is a highly transmissible form of the variant. Laurrie is hopeful that if all is done right to manage the containment of Omicron, that the peak of the variant should come and go relatively quickly.
"The expectation for this Omicron variant is that we're going to peak pretty high in January, and if history of other countries is any indicator, if we do things right, it should drop in February, hopefully," Laurrie said. "I know we're going to be in for a bit of a ride here this month. We have to be patient. Sometimes we have to slow down to speed things up and keep everything going at a nice even-keel."
Among the other topics discussed between Gov. Hochul and the school superintendents of New York State, according to Laurrie on Tuesday:
"I also heard very clearly that there was going to be no relief from masking. For the foreseeable future, we could continue to expect a mask mandate in all schools," Laurrie said. "There's [also] concern about the low vaccination rate of students 5-11-years-old. We're talking 16% only are fully vaccinated with two doses, and 27% are vaccinated with one dose, at least. So we now have a lot of details to sort through."
