DC should follow MoCo and stop over-quarantining

[Anonymous]

Montgomery country now says kids have to test positive or be in close contact with a person who tested positive in order to be sent home. No more sending entire classes home because of a positive test somewhere.

DC needs to do the same. These kids are already missing too much school.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/09/14/montgomery-county-school-qurantine-policy-update/

"Montgomery County Public Schools officials changed the district’s controversial quarantine policy Tuesday after weeks of backlash from parents and community members.

The change, which took effect immediately, now only requires close contacts of a student showing virus symptoms to quarantine if the student tests positive or has a known exposure to the coronavirus.

After the first week of school, officials implemented a policy that required those in close contact with a symptomatic student to quarantine while awaiting test results, sending more than 1,700 students, mostly in elementary school, home to quarantine during the first weeks of class. Montgomery leaders have said they based the policy on county health recommendations.

School and county leaders say the policy was implemented out of an abundance of caution as students returned to school Aug. 30 amid surging cases involving the delta variant of the virus. But many parents who were hoping for a more normal school year were outraged by the policy and questioned why rapid testing for symptomatic students was not readily available."

[Anonymous]

MCPS was shutting down entire classrooms due to 1 exhibited symptom (e.g. headache). They had to update the policy. Their new policy sounds very similar to DCPS. I don't see what is drastically different.

[Anonymous]

I also think DC needs to move to a "test to stay" approach for close contacts who might otherwise be required to quarantine. Rapid daily testing of close contacts would reduce educational disruptions and still prevent transmission, without adding significant operational responsibilities to schools. DC Health or OSSE should take the lead on ensuring all schools have sufficient supplies of tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS was shutting down entire classrooms due to 1 exhibited symptom (e.g. headache). They had to update the policy. Their new policy sounds very similar to DCPS. I don't see what is drastically different.

It sounds like MCPS had a stricter quarantine policy than DCPS, but now they have a less strict one. It sounds like the difference is you have to have a positive test to be sent home, unless it was clear you were in very close contact with someone who tested positive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS was shutting down entire classrooms due to 1 exhibited symptom (e.g. headache). They had to update the policy. Their new policy sounds very similar to DCPS. I don't see what is drastically different.

It sounds like MCPS had a stricter quarantine policy than DCPS, but now they have a less strict one. It sounds like the difference is you have to have a positive test to be sent home, unless it was clear you were in very close contact with someone who tested positive.

They had a completely insane policy.

[Anonymous]

We have gotten multiple notifications in MCPS at our school and its a huge safety issue.

[Anonymous]

DCPS is doing anything BUT over-quarantining. There was a symptomatic case in my kid's class and they only quarantined three of the 24 students.

[Anonymous]

We had a kid going around telling everyone he had covid. Never kept his mask on. Now hes out. With covid. No one is considered a close contact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also think DC needs to move to a "test to stay" approach for close contacts who might otherwise be required to quarantine. Rapid daily testing of close contacts would reduce educational disruptions and still prevent transmission, without adding significant operational responsibilities to schools. DC Health or OSSE should take the lead on ensuring all schools have sufficient supplies of tests.

This would have required DCPS to actually start planning over the summer, buy the rapid tests, and have testing procedures in place.

The chancellor’s office has about 0 ability to do that. They failed. Everything is last minute.

But the website domain and the hashtags are great!!!!


We have a chief marketing officer running DCPS, not a chancellor. Ferebee needs to go

[Anonymous]

The daily case rate just skyrocketed. Nicely done DCPS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The daily case rate just skyrocketed. Nicely done DCPS!

I wonder if testing also increased (you know, because of the large testing program at DC schools). More testing = finding more cases. It will be interesting to see whether the positivity rate or the R0 jumped at the same time (those aren't updated yet).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The daily case rate just skyrocketed. Nicely done DCPS!

Uh huh...and you are tying the DC daily case rate to DCPS because of what evidence?

[Anonymous]

The frequent and long quarantines do beg the question of what kids are actually doing when they are quarantined. For many people who can't just take weeks off or work from home, I wonder if the kids are just staying home by themselves. More pertinently to the idea that quarantines are supposed to prevent covid spread, I wonder if the kids are staying with other kids in group settings.

More reasons why "test and stay" would be beneficial.

[Anonymous]

My child is in quarantine despite multiple negative coronavirus tests. Why?

[Anonymous]

Huh? We do not quarantine whole classes. I had 6 positive students the rest are still in school and 4 more must now get tested, so I guess they are in quarantine.

I only have 7 students left…