Town Hall Meeting

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[15] Mark Triplett: Good evening, everyone.

[17] SPEAKER_25: Sunset passes up. Easy man, just turn the page.

[26] Mark Triplett: Good evening, welcome.

[28] SPEAKER_25: Freeze the image of your bones. Fantasy is just a blues. Welcome everyone, we'll get started in a minute. Welcome, looks like we have 60 folks in the room thus far. All right, we'll wait about 30 more seconds and then we'll go ahead and get started.

[102] Mark Triplett: Miss Single Motters, you want to go ahead and put the deck up?

[106] SPEAKER_24: I think we're ready to get started.

[134] Mark Triplett: Looks like we have 75 people in the room. So let's go ahead and start. Thank you all for joining us this evening. Welcome. I'm Mark Triplett. I'm the superintendent here at NUSD. And this is our virtual town hall for January 19th with regard to updates around COVID-19 guidance. So again, thank you for joining us and hope everyone is doing safe and well and hanging in there during this difficult, challenging time. Single monitors, you want to go to the next slide? So this meeting, the purpose of the meeting is we want to share updates to state COVID guidelines, which have been changing quickly, and also share the implications for our Newark schools and students and families. We will have time at the end for questions. So we'll ask if you have a question, you can put it in the Q&A, but it will ask if you can hold on to the end of the presentation, because we may answer your question during the presentation, and that way we can get to all the questions that we may not have answered during the presentation. Next slide, please.

[212] SPEAKER_26: Dr. Triplett, before we get into the next slide, would you allow our team to introduce ourselves?

[218] Mark Triplett: I'm so sorry. I was just jumping in. Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Ms. Ingham-Watters. Do you want to go ahead and start?

[224] SPEAKER_26: Sure. Hi, everyone. I'm Catheerine Ingham-Watters. I'm the Executive Director of Human Resources. Ms.dela Cruz?

[232] Marie dela Cruz: Good evening, everyone. I'm Marie de la Cruz, the Chief Business Official for the district.

[240] Mark Triplett: Who's next, Ms. Dela Cruz?

[242] Marie dela Cruz: Oh, Ms. Pierce-Davis.

[244] SPEAKER_29: All right. Nicole Pierce-Davis, Assistant Superintendent of Ed Services. Ms. Gutierrez?

[250] SPEAKER_30: I'm Ms. Gutierrez, Executive Assistant to the Superintendent.

[256] Mark Triplett: And Ms. Lopez, do you want to introduce yourself as well?

[259] SPEAKER_27: Hello, everyone. I'm Agnes Lopez, the District Nurse for Newark Unified.

[264] Mark Triplett: All right. Thank you. Thanks, Miss Ingham-Watters. I appreciate you jumping in there. Great. And I do want to take a moment with Miss Agnes Lopez introducing herself just to appreciate everyone, appreciate everyone that has been doing so much work during this really challenging time, but in particular, I really want to appreciate Miss Lopez. She has been doing unbelievable work night and day to really make sure that we are doing contact tracing, that we're being responsive, and we're really keeping students and staff safe during COVID. So thank you, Miss Lopez. I want to publicly appreciate you. All right, so jumping in here, I first wanted to start with some data. So this is posted on our website weekly and it's for the data for cases from the prior week. And it's the information is based on positive COVID-19 cases of NUSD students and staff who reported to work. or reported to school during their infectious period. So, in this situation, a case refers to someone who tested positive for COVID-19. So, I've been sharing this throughout the year. Like I said, it's on our website, but I did just want to highlight something that's clearly indicated in the data, the recent data, is that we are, just like the rest of the country and the world, we are in the midst of the Omicron surge. And since returning from winter break, we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of positive cases both students and staff, and I know that all of us around the world have really had to pivot and really rethink how we are staying safe, how we are addressing this virus, and what are the protocols and structures. So this evening, we are gonna share both some of the things that we are continuing to do, but then also some new guidelines that have come out, because just as we all know, the Omicron virus has been very different. than previous strains of COVID. And so we've had to change accordingly. The good news is while Omicron is highly contagious, overall, what we're hearing from the health officials is that the symptoms are less severe, particularly if you are vaccinated and or boosted. So folks who are still unvaccinated or not boosted, I think the hospitalization rates tend to be focused or tend to be for the people who are unvaccinated, but overall hospitalizations has been, the rates have been lower for unvaccinated, or sorry, for vaccinated individuals. So, as you can see on here, when we came back, we did have quite an increase in the reported number of student cases, 141 in the first week back, 180 last week. I will say that it appears that we are both at the peak, but then also, and it's probably premature to say what the data is going to look like for the remainder of this week, but it does appear that we may be on the downward slope of our peak. I don't think anybody knows what's going to happen next, but it is good news that it appears that the positive cases do appear to be slowing down a little bit. Next slide, please. So wanted to turn it over to Nurse Lopez in a minute, because as you probably know, the process and the protocols have changed for when a student has symptoms of COVID, as well as when students are exposed to someone who tests positive. And so we did want to go over these with you and just highlight some of the changes and then afterwards talk a little bit about new guidelines around quarantining and tracing. Ms. Lopez?

[535] SPEAKER_27: Okay, thank you. So I briefly just want to go over the flowchart for parents. So this applies to our students. It's a two page guidance. First page talks about the isolation protocol and isolation just It refers to students that are symptomatic or have tested positive regardless of vaccination status. So isolation protocol is if you have symptoms of COVID, you have three options. You either get a healthcare provider's note saying that your symptoms are not due to COVID or there's an alternative diagnosis. Our second option is you get tested for COVID to see if your symptoms are really because of COVID or to rule out COVID. And the third option is to remain in isolation without testing. And what that looks like is remain isolated for 10 days and you come back to school on day 11 when your fever for at least 24 hours if you have fever and your symptoms have resolved. So let me just go back then to the second option, which is getting tested. So if you have symptoms, you get tested and you get a negative result, then if you were coming from quarantine, so let's say you're already put in quarantine, because you were exposed to a positive case. And then you got tested because you became symptomatic during your quarantine period. But your test shows that you're negative, you still have to finish your quarantine period. You go back and finish your quarantine period before you can come back to school. If you were not in quarantine, then Then you return to school when your fever is gone for 24 hours and your child's symptoms have resolved or your child feels better. The other scenario with getting tested is when you test positive. What happens when you test positive? So there is no test to release from being in isolation. So you have to finish your isolation period when you test positive, which means you have to remain in isolation for 10 days. And then the other part of that is if you don't want to do the full 10-day isolation, you can get released early if you do not have symptoms by testing on day five. So you get tested on day five of your isolation, and if that test is negative, you can return as early as day six, return to school as early as day six. Second slide, please. And then the second slide just talks about exposure or quarantine. So two scenarios, you were exposed and are vaccinated or one exposed, but you are not vaccinated. So let's talk about the first scenario. You were exposed to a positive case, but your child is not vaccinated. So you have to, the child needs to go into quarantine. Is the child symptomatic? Yes, if the child is symptomatic and is in quarantine, then you go to page one and follow the isolation guidelines. If you're in quarantine and you do not have symptoms, we have different options. And I don't know, Dr. Triplett, if you wanna go into the other options now.

[798] Mark Triplett: We'll, I'll address those next after this.

[802] SPEAKER_27: Okay. Yeah. Okay. So typically quarantine, if you, if you're fully vaccinated, you're exposed and you don't have symptoms, you do not have to quarantine. The recommendation though, is still to test on day five after exposure just to make sure that you are not asymptomatic. The second scenario is you are exposed to a positive case and I'm sorry, going back to the first, you're not vaccinated. You're exposed. You are not vaccinated. You do not have symptoms. You do have to quarantine for five days, at least five days, test on day five. And if that's a negative, if your test is a negative, then you can come back to school. And then if you were exposed, but you are vaccinated, you do not have symptoms. You can return to school and you just need to task between day three and day five after your exposure to the positive case. If you are symptomatic, you go ahead and go back to the first page to the isolation guidelines. And I think Dr. Triplett will talk more about the options.

[880] Mark Triplett: Thank you, Ms. Lopez. So, yeah, what Miss Lopez was referring to on there with regard to, can you go back for a second? Yeah, thank you, Singham Waters. The different options to stay in school. That's what we're going to talk about now because that has changed dramatically in the last couple days. And so we want to go over the change that we're planning to implement starting Monday. So we just received the notice of this, this new guidance that districts have the option of implementing. And so our plan is to communicate to you tonight, communicate to families in the next 48 hours via other means of email and social media. And, and then also to train up our staff so that starting Monday, we are prepared to implement this new approach. So the California Department of Public Health has has communicated this group tracing approach. And what it is, is it addresses how do we maximize the ability for students to stay in school if they're asymptomatic, meaning they don't have any symptoms. How do we maximize that opportunity while keeping people safe? And so the approach that has been outlined is called group tracing. And so what that is, I'm going to go through it. And then, of course, we'll have questions at the end of the presentation. So if a student is exposed to someone with COVID-19 in a kindergarten through 12th grade school setting, the school will notify the students who spent more than a cumulative total of 15 minutes within a 24 hour period in a shared indoor space, such as classroom with someone with COVID-19 during their period of infectiousness. So anybody who was exposed to someone with a positive case will be notified, families will be notified. Next slide, please. So the distinction is what we've been doing up to this point is we have been doing individual contact tracing. When someone reports a positive case in a classroom, then we do individual contact tracing with regard to the location where that student was in the room and the close contacts around that student in the classroom. That is changing. So instead of doing that individual contact tracing, we are going to be notifying the whole group of exposed students. In other words, a class or a group or cohort, we will notify them of that exposure. So rather than contact tracing to identify individual close contacts, we will be identifying group contacts. Next slide, please. So what happens if your child is in a class where there is a positive case, and we learn of the positive case, we communicate that to everyone in that class, that all students in that class have been exposed, then here's what happens next. So exposed students, regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status or prior infection, which means whether they're unvaccinated or vaccinated, whether they've had COVID before or not, the students need to get tested for COVID-19 with at least one diagnostic test. And so the guidelines state that that should happen within three to five days after the last exposure, that's within that time period, not at five days, but within three to five days after the last exposure. However, in certain circumstances, that testing can occur once a week. And so we are currently in a situation with Omicron where that is possible to test once a week to ensure that we are monitoring all of our exposed but asymptomatic students. So I'll read the second part here because this is important detail. In the event of a wide scale or repeated exposures, broader like grade-wide or class-wide state guidance allows for once weekly on-site testing for COVID-19 until such time that exposure events become less frequent. So right now, as you saw in the data, we are in a situation where we are experiencing as a country wide scale and repeated exposures. And so because of that, this guidance says that we can test once weekly on site of all students who were exposed, but are asymptomatic. Now, actually, I think we're going to get to it in the next slide, but this still is only students whose parents give permission to test. So if a parent says, if we tell a class there was a positive case in your class, and therefore you have an option to either quarantine at home until the appropriate times that Ms. Lopez was articulating earlier, or you do have the option to stay in school, but you would have to agree to be tested weekly. Right, so that's what this part here says, I'll read it out. Exposed students who participate in weekly testing may continue to take part in all aspects of K-12 schooling, including sports and extracurricular activities, unless they develop symptoms or test positive for COVID-19. So again, this is for students who, whether they're vaccinated or unvaccinated, they were in a classroom where there was a positive case, they can continue to attend school If the parent agrees that the student is tested weekly for a two-week cycle until the contagion exposure time has been eliminated. Exposed students who develop symptoms should quarantine. So anybody who is symptomatic has any sort of symptoms of COVID should quarantine and should not be in school during this time period. Likewise, exposed students who receive a positive test result should not just quarantine but isolate. So just a reminder of the distinction. Quarantine is when you are not in school, you are at home. Isolation is when you're at home, but you are not even in regular contact, physical contact with or proximity to family members. So isolation is when you're by yourself in a room. Okay, we are going to shift gears and now talk about the testing because it brought up the fact that folks who were students who were exposed and asymptomatic need to, they want to stay in school during that period will be required to test once weekly. And so Ms. Dela Cruz is going to speak a little bit about the testing program that we've had up throughout this year, but has for sure ramped up in the last two weeks or three weeks. Ms. Delacruz.

[1329] Marie dela Cruz: Thank you, Dr. Triplett. As Dr. Triplett mentioned, we have been providing weekly testing at all of our schools for several months now. And we have students that are testing at each of their schools once a week. Parent guardian consent is required. So if you are required or need to have your student tested, A form needs to be completed, or you can do the online QR code. The QR codes are on our website, and they're also available at the school offices. And this testing is provided at no cost to all our families and students. The testing that is provided is a lower nasal PCR swab test, or there's an oral PCR for younger students. The test results usually are provided within 24 hours, but lately it could be up to 72 hours. The results are sent via text or email, depending on the information that you provide on the consent form. And all the results are also sent to our district nurse, Ms. Lopez. If the child tests positive, the child needs to isolate for the days that are required and the school must be contact right away. So here's the schedule that we currently have, that we've had for several months. Each Monday, you can see we test at the Birch Grove, primary and intermediate, and at the junior high school. Tuesdays is at Coyote Hills and Kennedy and at the high school. Wednesdays is at Lincoln and Schilling. Thursdays is at Music and the high school. And Fridays, it's at McGregor and, I'm sorry, Thursday was junior high school, Friday is the Memorial High School. So you can see that secondaries, we have testing available two days a week. And the staff there from Predison is there from 8 o'clock in the morning until 3.30 in the afternoon. We also have a free COVID testing at Whiteford School. This is specifically good for symptomatic students. So if you have a student that is symptomatic that you would like to get tested, they can go to Whiteford School. And this testing is also available to our community for asymptomatic or symptomatic testing.

[1516] Mark Triplett: Okay, thank you, Ms. Dela Cruz. So, Ms. Ingham-Watters is now going to talk a little bit about the communication, because if you will recall, or I'm sure you sometimes have received a communication from school regarding exposure, the communication structure is changing slightly as well with this new group tracing. So, Ms. Ingham-Watters.

[1539] SPEAKER_26: Just a couple of updates as we move towards the group exposure. So if your child, as we've been doing the protocols so far, you may have gotten a letter, Dear Exposed Student, specific to your child being identified as a close contact. And so the shift would be if your child is in that group, you would get a group exposure letter communicated to classes or cohorts who are exposed to a positive case, just like the close contact letter. It will articulate next steps, like Nurse Lopez went over on the flow chart. And so the content of the letter will provide your next steps, but it would be sent to the entire group as described earlier by Dr. Triplett. So just a slight shift on the exposure letter. And then I'll just go ahead and keep going. As a community, you probably have received many community letters. I'm a parent in the district myself. And so really on a daily basis, I'm getting the community letters. And so it'll say, we're writing to let you know that a member of our school community or many members of our school community have reported positive. And so the shift that we are moving in with the community letters given this spike in Omicron is instead of on a daily basis or multiple letters throughout the week, waiting and communicating on a weekly basis, to the whole school community to inform of community cases. Really with the spike that we've seen, there is an assumption if students are attending on a daily basis in person, that there will likely be positive cases throughout the week, if not daily. And so shifting to the positive cases at the community level to a weekly letter will be a shift that I think may be helpful for some parents and guardians who are getting those on a daily basis. And so the shifts for the letters would be the group exposure letter versus the single close contact. and then shifting our community letter to a weekly basis.

[1704] Mark Triplett: Thank you, Ms. Ingham-Watters. And I will point out there are some districts who are opting just to send a letter once a week for all exposures. We feel like we still really want to, that parents really want to and need to know on a daily basis if their child has been in a class with a student who has tested positive. So we are continuing, like Ms. Ingham-Watters said, we're continuing our daily letters for for exposure, but we will go to once a week for the community letter that articulates the number of positive cases for that week at the school.

[1743] SPEAKER_26: Thank you for that clarification.

[1748] Mark Triplett: So the next part is about vaccinations. And we wanna continue to really emphasize and encourage everyone to get vaccinated. So I'm gonna turn it over to Ms. Pierce-Davis to talk a little bit about our vaccination opportunities.

[1764] SPEAKER_29: Absolutely. And before we do, just to note that it will be added. We know that it will be added to California's list of required vaccines for in-person school. We just don't know when. But that is to say, why not get prepared ahead of time? So we have lots of opportunities to get vaccinated. We absolutely want to increase specifically our student vaccination rate, the adult rate in Newark is quite good. And we're trying to increase our student rate as we speak. We have some room for improvement there. So to that end, we have a couple of, we have a vaccination clinic right in house. There we go. at Coyote Hills Elementary. And you can see the flyer here. Please, please, please come Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. You can see the flyer here in both English and Spanish. All, you know, please, there's limited drop-in spots, but drop-ins are also available. Appointments are encouraged. We have the capacity to meet your needs. So please, please come out and get vaccinated.

[1834] Mark Triplett: All right, thank you, Ms. Pierce-Davis. So that concludes the presentation. I'm sure you have many questions. So we're gonna take a little bit of time here to try to answer as best as we can, as many questions as we can. And if we don't have the answers to something, then of course we will also go back and engage with the county and state officials so that we do have the answers to any questions that do arise. Before we jump into the Q&A from the Q&A tab, There were some families that sent in questions prior. If you saw the flyer, there was an invitation that if folks wanted to send in a question to the survey link on the website in advance that they could do so. And so we want to just honor some of those before we jump into all of the other questions. Ms. Gutierrez, do you want to read those questions one by one? Is that the best way, or would it be better for me to do so?

[1903] SPEAKER_30: You'll have them in front of you, and you want to recap them?

[1907] Mark Triplett: Great. OK. So let's see. I'll start at the top here. It may be some of these questions have already been answered in the presentation, so that will move things along a little bit. Question about why are we not using plexiglass partitions at each student's desk or seat? So I'll start and then Ms. Pierce-Davis, if you want to chime in, feel free. So we do have the plexiglass barriers for every student. That was something that we purchased last year when we returned to in-person and they're available. They were set up in our classes last year and they are still available. So if you want your child to have the barrier on their desk, please speak to the teacher, your child's teacher, or the school main office, the principal, and we can accommodate that. Sorry, Ms. Pierce-Davis, I think I stole the whole answer. Let's see, question about Why is NUSD not following the modified quarantine guideline as stated in Alameda County School Guidance and is only opting to follow the 10-day at-home and the seven-day shortened quarantine guidelines? So hopefully we address that in the presentation, that rather than the modified quarantine, we are shifting to the next phase, which is the group tracing. and the quarantine that goes along with that, which is very similar to the modified quarantine, but with one less testing day. And I believe that is the direction that the state and the county are really advising, and that I would imagine that most districts are going to move away from the old modified quarantine to the new group tracing protocol. Let's see. Okay, with the new protocols for close contact cases, what is being done to ensure those kids aren't passing it around the others and creating an outbreak within the school? Ms. Ingham-Watters, do you wanna take that? I can read the question again.

[2049] SPEAKER_26: Yes, please.

[2050] Mark Triplett: Okay. With the new protocols for close contact cases, what is being done to ensure those kids aren't passing it around the others and creating an outbreak within the school?

[2062] SPEAKER_26: I think that goes back to the fundamentals of the expectations in the classroom and at the school. So, ensuring students are wearing a mask every single day, they are wearing them correctly, resetting the expectations in the classroom and outside, physically distancing from each other as much as possible. Nurse Agnes, do you have any other recommendations as far as the best mitigations for students being safe on campus,

[2101] SPEAKER_27: Really, it's just like what you said, Miss Ingham-Watters, it's making sure that as much as possible students are wearing their masks. Also, emphasis on making sure these masks are clean masks and the fit is very important, a mask that fits well. if vaccination is also important because that is a layer of protection. Distancing is not as emphasized if other layers of protection are in place, like your masking. Vaccination and of course, hand hygiene is also very important.

[2146] Mark Triplett: All right, thank you. This next question, Ms. Pierce-Davis, perhaps you can take this one. Why are the required COVID quarantine days counted in my students' absences?

[2157] SPEAKER_29: Yeah, that's a great question. So legally speaking, once AB 130 came out, they gave very specific regulations around independent study, and it put an end to distance learning. So if the child is not in school, we would be breaking the law if we said that they were present. However, what we did to get ahead of that this year is we created a specific code for quarantine. And so in our system it's considered an excused absence, meaning we sort of have suppressed a two a letters that are regarding absences due to quarantine, we have a special code to indicate that so when we pull attendance. When we pull attendance records and we start looking at SART conferences and talking with parents and families about absences, if we notice that they've been on quarantine, we won't follow up with those families in the same way that we would with others. So we created a code, that way we can track it. We can also see at the end of the year how many days were missed due to quarantine, all of those kinds of things. So although we would love to not have to say that your student is absent, if they are not in school, unfortunately we have to. Now there is the short-term independent study option. If you want positive attendance for the day, that does require working with your school site. There's a lot of steps involved. And unfortunately, that is really the only option that was left once AB 130 came out, was to do that short-term independent study. And I did see a question in the Q&A that said, well, can we extend that short-term independent study beyond 14 days? Again, that's kind of outside of that. It is kind of, it is outside of our control. 14 days was set as the maximum by the state. And so anything over that then needs to transfer into a full-time independent study program. So as much as we would love to make those changes and adjustments, we really are sort of bound by our state requirements at this time.

[2272] Mark Triplett: Thank you, Miss Pierce-Davis. This next question, Miss Ingham-Watters, perhaps you can answer this. So the question is, we have a couple of questions about outdoors lunch seating. Do you know when the outdoor lunch seating will be available?

[2289] SPEAKER_26: Perhaps Miss Dela Cruz can chime in as well. I know at some sites, there is more orders for accommodating outside seating. And so, we want to make sure that those items such as tables and things like that are set up properly for students. Specifically, I would say follow up with the site principal who could specifically monitor any specific sites plans for providing outdoor seating. I know Most students are eating their their snack in the morning outside and lunch spacing students out the very best that they can with outside seating. if there is not outside seating due to deliveries of tables and umbrellas and other outside furniture, if you will, ensuring that classes are spaced out as much as possible with a goal to provide as much outdoor seating for students in the quickest amount of time. So I would say just contact the site principal, you know, specific to the site for the best update specific.

[2369] Mark Triplett: Thank you, Ms. Inglewaters. Ms. Del Cruz, is there anything you wanna add?

[2374] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, I know that all of the schools have outdoor seating and we did order additional tables. So I would check to see if those tables, I need to check to see if those tables have arrived and they have been delivered to the schools. But every school should have some form of outdoor seating currently.

[2399] Mark Triplett: Great, thank you. All right, I think one more question from the original questions and then why don't we shift over to the current Q&A in the Q&A button on Zoom. The question was, will there be or is there a masking, sorry, a testing mandate? So, The state does not have a testing mandate. So we cannot require that students be tested. However, as we articulated earlier, we can require that students who were exposed in order to not quarantine do have to agree to testing. So there's no broad testing mandate, that's not something the state has done, but students who were exposed and would otherwise need to quarantine, we can say that they have an option to test and remain in school for the period of the quarantine. Last question, sorry, I know there was one other one that I saw in there I wanted to address is, will we be closing schools or why haven't we closed schools? So I know this has come up a number of times. And I know that you may have read in the news of other districts that have closed for maybe two days or a week. To my knowledge, there are no current districts that are closed within Alameda County or the surrounding area. We have not closed and will only close if we have that guidance from the county health department as well as the state department of education. So the rules and the education code say that in order to close school for a duration, that that is what's required, the approval and the consent of both the County Health Department and the state. Both those entities have indicated that they really are supporting schools staying open, if at all possible. And my understanding is the only reason that they would be closing schools is if they, while they're investigating, looking at positive case data, if they see extreme transmission within a school, then that is when they do an investigation and determine if it's necessary to close the school temporarily. We have not been in that situation. We have not had those cases of needing to having a school that has extreme transmission within the school. And therefore, the county and the state have not indicated that that would be an option for us this time. All right, let's jump to the Q&A in the Zoom. Ms. Gutierrez, do you want to go ahead and read the questions and then we'll see, we'll do our best to respond.

[2590] SPEAKER_30: I'll start at the top. Will the community letters state how many cases there are within the school within that week? For example, three cases, one case, or just several?

[2601] Mark Triplett: Yeah, that's a good question. We are actually going to use the format from the public health department. And to be honest, I would have to go back and look at what that says, whether they are indicating that we should just say several or a specific number. So we'll follow whatever guidance is coming from the health department.

[2625] SPEAKER_30: Thank you. Next question is, can Parents can receive actual notice regarding these type of town halls because this parent was only made aware through mouth, through the word of mouth.

[2639] Mark Triplett: Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm sorry if someone, oh, I'm glad that parent is here. I'm glad everyone was able to log on. We have over a hundred parents here. Yeah, we try our best to communicate in as many channels as possible. So we did send this, this is posted on our website, sent out via, social media, Facebook, Instagram, as well as communicating to schools and schools sharing the information with their families. We did not send out an email for this meeting tonight. We do sometimes, but we also get some feedback from people saying that we stop the emails, stop sending so many emails. And so we try to find a balance. But if the general opinion is that it would have been good to also get an email for this in addition to posting on the website, social media, communication with schools, then we can certainly take that into consideration.

[2694] SPEAKER_30: Thank you. The next question is, will you provide transparency about in-school transmission of infections in aggregates? I am certainly not asking for anything that would violate privacy, but it would be helpful to understand if positive cases in schools are actually resulting in transmission. This would give clarity around the effectiveness of safety measures that are in place.

[2716] Mark Triplett: Yeah, so we provide data every week on the number of cases in the district. We post that on our website for transparency, both how many staff and how many students, And then, like I said, we're going to be communicating out moving forward the cases on a weekly basis for each school. And then what we've done up until this point is communicate to the school, the full school community, the number of cases that they have on a daily basis. So yeah, all of that is communicated. The entity that determines in-school transmission is not us, it is the county public health department. So they have an investigative team that is monitoring data daily, and then they are making determinations whether there's a pattern that warrants further deep dive, whether it's a possible transmission within the school. And then when they do that, they notify us, they work with us to investigate. I can say that we have had situations this year where that team has noticed possible transmission in our schools and so has communicated with us and done a deeper dive into the caseload. But to my knowledge, there has been no situation this year where that investigative team has determined that there was widespread on-site transmission.

[2817] SPEAKER_30: Thank you. Next question is, can you clarify what fully vaccinated means? Does this include the booster shot as well?

[2825] Mark Triplett: Thank you. Ms. Lopez, maybe you can chime in if I get this wrong, but I believe that fully vaccinated at this point is the two doses, unless it's the Johnson & Johnson, which is one dose. The booster is a recommendation for those who are eligible, but I do not believe it currently is defined as fully vaccinated. I'm getting a thumbs up from Ms. Lopez.

[2852] SPEAKER_30: Perfect. And thank you. This next one is regarding isolation and temporary again. If a child tests positive and does isolate isolation for five days, and after that period, the antigen rapid test kit provided by the school is negative, can the child return to school?

[2869] Mark Triplett: Okay, I'm going to turn this one over to Ms. Lopez. Should she read it again, Ms. Lopez?

[2876] SPEAKER_27: No, that's okay. So I guess the question is, after a positive case, after five days of isolation, can that child use the rapid antigen test provided by school? And if that's a negative, can the child go back to school? The answer is negative home test kit. needs to be verified by a lab-based either antigen or PCR test or a monitored antigen or PCR test. And since your home test kits are not monitored testing, then at this time, no.

[2919] SPEAKER_30: Thank you. Okay. Next question is regarding a positive case at school. So if a class test positive? Are they only eating lunch and recess by staying on their own and staying away from others in order to keep the school safe?

[2939] Mark Triplett: Okay. I think it'd be important to just clarify a little bit here. So if a, we have never had a situation where an entire class test positive. If a student test positive, then they are sent home to isolate. So if any student or staff test positive, then they are no longer at the school and they're quarantining and isolating until the contagion period is over. but I think maybe part of that question is also if there is an exposure in that class, does that class then, even though there's no one positive, the positive person has gone home, does that class eat lunch by themselves or sort of quarantine? So in general, the classes are separated in elementary level and they they do recess, maybe with the same grade level, it really just depends on the on the given school and the given grade level, but if if there is a situation, I think this may be similar to another question coming up. where a group of one class is, let's say, eating lunch next to another class in the cafeteria or outside, then we would consider, and then one person from that group is a positive case, then we would consider both classes to have been exposed. So we would proceed accordingly with the testing for both groups and not just one group. A little complicated, but I hope that clarifies it.

[3048] SPEAKER_30: Thank you. And I believe you answered the second question right there regarding exposure at recess, right? Thank you. Another question here is, will group testing increase the chance of spread? We may be aggravating, or are we going to be aggravating the spread? Does the school district have enough staff to administer the tests?

[3069] Mark Triplett: Okay, that's an interesting question because the health officials are very clear that the more you test, the more positive cases you will find. It's just sort of like there's a mathematical average there. But that doesn't mean that testing is spreading the virus. Testing is identifying the virus and therefore allowing people to isolate. But the second part of the question was, do we have sufficient staff to be able to increase the testing and the answer fortunately is yes. Our partnership with predison has been really tremendous, very grateful for the incredible support that predison has offered I think we're very fortunate. to have selected Predison as our partner versus some of the other, not to disparage other testing partners, but let's just say ours is the best. And I know that since the start of the new year, I believe Predison has tested over 8,000 people, including students, including community members. And I think because the testing is so accessible here, I understand that we even have people coming from other other cities to benefit from the Whiteford testing site because it's been such a well-run, well-functioning site. So the answer is yes. Preston has assured us that they do have the capacity to increase the level of testing.

[3157] SPEAKER_30: Thank you. And it's still in relation to testing. For secondary students, how does the administration team ensure weekly tests for asymptomatic cohorts? as testing is only available right before or right after school and during brunch or lunch times. For example, will there be dedicated time for the affected classroom if the students choose to stay in school?

[3180] Mark Triplett: Hi, thank you. Yeah, that's a great question. So I think Ms. Delacruz did share on one of the slides that we test at, we offer testing once a week at every one of our schools. So that means on that day, when it's the testing day for that school, any child whose parents have given permission can be tested. So yeah, it's once a week, every school, and in the case of Newark Memorial, I believe it's actually twice a week because of the size of the school. So it's not just, it's actually not after school or before school that the testing is offered, it's during the school day. The Whiteford campus, does offer testing throughout the day. And I believe Ms. Delacruz, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's nine to five. So that is after school as well. I'm getting the thumbs up from Ms. Delacruz.

[3236] SPEAKER_30: That's right. Perfect. Thank you. This next question is regarding splitting classes. Can we get, can the class schedules split to lower the number of students? For example, having morning classes and afternoon classes?

[3254] Mark Triplett: Yeah, that's not possible. It would require twice the amount of teachers or staff if we were to split every class. I think maybe the parent is suggesting could there be a half day for everybody? And that's not allowed by the state. So we were able to do that last year. But the guidelines and the rules and ed code do not allow us to do a half day split for students this year.

[3287] SPEAKER_30: Thank you. And this next question is asking for clarity regarding testing. If my child was positive and had symptoms in order to come back on day six with a PCR test, is a PCR test required or is the home antigen test permissible?

[3304] Mark Triplett: Thank you. Ms. Lopez, can you take this one? I believe the answer is a lab-based or supervised test, but I'll let you jump in there.

[3313] SPEAKER_27: Yeah, that is correct. Not a home antigen test. You can do an antigen test, but it has to be lab-based or supervised, or you can do a PCR that's lab-based or supervised, but not a home test kit at this moment.

[3330] Mark Triplett: So the family could go to Whiteford which is open six days a week. You get a test there, that's a supervised test. Ms. Inglematers?

[3344] SPEAKER_26: Yeah, I just wanted to ask Nurse Lopez just a clarifying question back to the response on what's considered fully vaccinated. You said it was the two doses and then the booster was kind of recommended. Is there a timeframe after the one to two doses to be considered fully vaccinated? Is it like 10 or 14 days after the second dose?

[3369] SPEAKER_27: So it is 14 days after the second dose of a two-dose series, or in case of your Johnson & Johnson, then it's 14 days after that first shot.

[3380] SPEAKER_26: So the shots plus a little bit of two weeks after, then you're considered fully vaccinated. Thank you.

[3388] Mark Triplett: All right, we have time for about three more questions. I really appreciate all of these great questions. And I apologize if we're not gonna be able to get to every single question, although we're pretty close. Ms. Gutierrez, should we try for three more?

[3402] SPEAKER_30: Sure, the next one is regarding our cleaning protocols. Do we have outside companies cleaning our classrooms? Is that an option or would that make any change in regards to the positive cases?

[3417] Mark Triplett: Great, thank you. So I'll let Ms. Delacruz chime in as well, but we have custodians that do the cleaning every day and every night. They have a whole run sheet that they go through. It's based on, you can find the articulation of how they clean for safety and disinfecting in our safety plan, which is on our website under the COVID page. But no, we have fantastic custodians who do amazing work, have been working tirelessly to make sure that schools are cleaned every day and every night. And they do have equipment that is able to disinfect areas rapidly. They have equipment called foggers that do a great job of disinfecting. Ms. Del Cruz, did you want to add anything to that?

[3469] Marie dela Cruz: No, I think you've covered it. Okay. Thank you.

[3473] SPEAKER_30: Just real quick, I have a parent here that wanted to give kudos to Lincoln office staff for answering all her questions. So no questions there, just a thank you.

[3486] Mark Triplett: Amazing. Such an amazing group of people.

[3490] SPEAKER_30: Thank you. And how many students are currently in quarantine? Is that public information?

[3498] Mark Triplett: I don't think we have, I don't have that data handy. I don't know if we have that data. We do have the positive case rate. And so you can see that again, you can see that on our website.

[3510] SPEAKER_30: Okay. And our last question is, can we test outside of school after school? I'm sorry. Can we test outside of school after exposure? and just provide the test results, or do we have to go through a school test?

[3530] Mark Triplett: Okay, I'm just, I want to make sure I understand the question. I think we answered this before. Ms. Lopez, do you want to chime in?

[3539] SPEAKER_27: So if your child is going to partake in the group testing or the group quarantine, then they have to test through the school. But families do have the option to test outside of the school because we do have the Whiteford facility available for that. And if you feel like you don't want your child to go do the group testing, then you are also able to do the full 10 day quarantine and test on day five to end that quarantine early and you can test outside of school for that option.

[3584] Mark Triplett: Thank you, Ms. Lopez. Yeah, I think I was misunderstanding the question. Yeah, so if exposed and you want to be in school, you do need to use the onsite testing option that we provide once a week. But it doesn't mean you can't also get tested offsite at another facility. You just have to, you do have to take part in the onsite testing as well. Miss Gutierrez, I believe we're at it. Oh, we're one minute over. All right. I want to thank everyone for your questions and your concerns and also for your incredible support. And if we could just I want to just close out with an incredibly deep appreciation for our staff. Our teachers that are coming every day and really just been amazing during this surge. Our office staff who have been doing unbelievable contact tracing every day, communication while also manning the front desk. I mean, it's just incredible. Our principals who are leading in the situation. All of our support staff, our custodians, our food, child nutrition. who have been tirelessly making sure our young people get delicious, safe food every day, and many, many more. So just want to really appreciate this. They say it takes a village, and this is really a good example of this. The staff and community have just rallied to really make sure that our kids are being able to come to school and be safe. And when I have been visiting schools in these last two weeks, and I see that our young people learning, enjoying each other safely, and it makes me realize why all of this is so worth it. So again, thank you all. Thank you team here for responding to all these questions and we hope everyone stays safe.

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