Buffalo, NY (WBEN) - On Thursday, both state and Erie County leaders said it's up to individual schools and school districts to find a way to stay open under new testing mandates that apply in the designated 'Yellow Zone.'
As more schools consider going fully remote because of the costs associated with testing 20% of students every week, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said the county will not play a role in helping with testing. He added that the county already assisted schools.
"Erie County Provided more than $15 Million to school districts in Erie County to assist with costs," Poloncarz said. "That also was to be used for the costs associated with testing. We have a few school districts who say 'We're mad at Erie County.' Well, Erie County provided some of these districts millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars to assist them... I don't know how they spent their money. Hopefully they didn't just plug budget holes because if they did, shame on those school districts."
"That money paid for COVID related costs that had already been incurred," said Hamburg School Superintendent Michael Cornell. "The suggestion that we plugged budget holes with it, that would be a misuse of federal funds. Clearly I don't believe the County Executive is accusing us of that."
Cornell said he is not interested in pointing figures, but believes the county is leaving schools to fend for themselves when it comes to the state's testing requirements.
"To say that we didn't plan or we weren't ready for it, we were ready for it," Cornell said. "We secured the partnership with the county from the very beginning," Cornell said. "We met twice with the county to make sure they were still going to help us and be our partner and they said that they would. It wasn't until the day before the Governor made his micro-cluster announcement that the County told us they would not keep their commitment to schools."
The result will be a higher cost for schools looking to keep kids in the classroom.
Some school districts in Western New York have said the new testing requirement would cost over $10,000 per week to implement, an unsustainable expense for many.
The County Executive disputed those numbers.
"If a superintendent is out there saying this is going to cost us millions of dollars, there should be no cost associated with the tests," Poloncarz said.
"We have no innate public health capacity housed in our walls but for the amazing school-based nurses," Cornell said, in response. "The cost comes from, we need a health professional to give the test. The nurses... they simply don't have the time to become a rapid COVID-testing site."
The cost would primarily come from hiring an outside nurse or clinic to administer the tests, which would be added on to the expense of PPE and other COVID-controlling measures schools have taken.
Still, Cornell said he plans to do whatever he can to stay open and avoid having his students spend even more time outside of the classroom.
