BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) – Schools under the orange zone are closed beginning Monday for in-person learning and must now take further measures to stop the spread of coronavirus.
Under the state's orange micro-cluster zones, schools must remain closed for at least four calendar days, meaning the earliest they could reopen for in-person is November 27, though all schools will be on Thanksgiving recess on that date. The first two days of this period are to ensure a lack of infectious contact at the school and two days for additional testing.
Any student, teacher, or staff member must receive a negative test result before returning to the classroom. Anyone who tests positive or is quarantined due to close contact will not be allowed on school grounds. Additionally, the state said results of the coronavirus test must come within seven days after the test is taken.
Schools must also up their testing capabilities in the orange zone. Under the yellow zone designation, only 20 percent of the school population needed to be tested bi-weekly. In the orange and zones 25 percent of those who are in the classroom must be tested per week. The 25 percent of those tested must all be unique, meaning the same person cannot be tested each week. A person at a school can be counted by the state once every five weeks.
Is it feasible for schools to do this? Likely not.
Hamburg Schools Superintendent Michael Cornell said that the guidance is a very high bar for a school district.
"It is a substantial public health mandate for an institution who is not a public health institution," Cornell said. "As we look at guidance as it is currently written…We just don't feel that it is logistically or financially feasible without substantial federal, state, and county coordination and support."
Cornell pointed out that they would have to test 100 percent of everybody who will be in the classroom and then still continue to test 25 percent of the population each week.
It likely means that Hamburg, and most other school districts in the orange zone, will switch to remote learning. Cornell said they have planned for months to operate under a remote model. For now, they plan to assess their zone designation on a weekly basis to determine whether or not they will stay with remote learning or try to operate in a hybrid model as they were before.
Other schools already planned to switch to a remote model before Governor Cuomo's announcement on Wednesday.
If schools have at least nine cases or three percent of the 25 percent test positive, then the school cannot reopen.
