Mass Quarantines Stress Teachers, Students At Fairfield Schools

FAIRFIELD, CT — Contact tracing and quarantines associated with the coronavirus pandemic are increasingly a source of stress and uncertainty for Fairfield students and teachers, officials said this week.

“Contact tracing in the last two, three weeks has become a seven-day-a-week job, and almost 24 hours a day,” Superintendent Mike Cummings told the school board Tuesday. “There’s a lot of worry and anxiety.”

The hundreds of students required to quarantine weekly are also creating instructional challenges for teachers, who often don’t have much notice of which students will be in the classroom and which will be learning from home. The school district has plans to add a 90-minute late start on Wednesdays following spring break to give instructors more prep time, but does not intend to change education models after fully reopening for in-person learning about a month ago.

“We are almost defacto hybrid,” Cummings said, after telling the board that only 71 percent of Fairfield Warde High School students and 66 percent of Fairfield Ludlowe High School students attended school in-person Monday. “This remains a very fluid situation.”

As of Friday, 57 students had recently tested positive for the virus, and 382 students and 16 staffers were quarantined, according to district data. As students have realized a positive case could require up to 40 people to quarantine, they have become fearful about needing to stay home after sitting near someone with the virus, according to Ludlowe Head Principal Greg Hatzis.

“There’s just a real fear that they’re going to be quarantined, and they’re going to miss out,” Warde Head Principal Paul Cavanna said.

Despite the high number of cases affecting the district, officials are only aware of eight instances of in-school transmission resulting in a symptomatic case over the course of the year.

“It is not lunch, it is classrooms,” Cummings said, noting that face masks, while effective, are not completely impenetrable. “Eight is a really good number given the amount of daily interactions in our schools.”

Students should quarantine after travel, if they’re awaiting the results of a virus test and if they feel ill, according to Cummings.

“The solution to getting less kids in quarantine is be far more careful outside of school,” he said, urging families to practice mitigation strategies.

In light of the many quarantines, the district is giving teachers an extra 90 minutes of planning time with the Wednesday late start, which was unanimously approved in the form of a memorandum of understanding between the school board and teachers union at a special meeting Wednesday.

“Clearly this is something that’s been needed by the students, the teachers and the administration,” Fairfield Education Association President Bob Smoler said, calling the late start, “time that is desperately needed given this sort of blended learning model that we’re in right now.”

Cummings agreed when he addressed the board Tuesday.

“I do think we need to think about supporting teachers with time for additional preparation and student support,” he said.

In March, hundreds of high school and middle school students signed a petition requesting Wednesdays be switched to half-days to allow them to decompress from the stresses of the pandemic.