
Two dozen students walked out of classes at Haines School in 2018 to protest gun violence one month after the Parkland school shooting in Florida. (Berett Wilber/KHNS)
The Haines school is working to safeguard from the rising omicron variant, with masking and regular testing in place. The board of education also took a look at longer term policy recently for a future when cases decline, with the goal of maintaining in-person school. KHNS’ Corinne Smith has the latest.
Haines Superintendent Roy Getchell is fielding lots of questions about COVID, one being about quarantine.
Currently, Haines students who are identified as close contacts of someone infected with COVID-19 in school, do not have to quarantine because masking is required and protects from transmission. That’s per guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But Superintendent Getchell says if students are identified as being in close contact with someone outside of school, families should follow the guidance of state public health authorities.
“For out of school close contacts, those are public health conversations, and there’s a lot of variables at play there,” Getchell said.
The CDC recently changed the quarantine time from 10 to five days, with recommended masking for ten days.
Superintendent Getchell says that he’s also frequently asked about school closure due to COVID. The school was closed for the last two days due to winter weather, but Getchell says the district is committed to in-person learning. The school is maintaining the same mitigation measures: masking, frequent testing, ventilation, and social distancing.
He says he meets with the school’s health advisory committee weekly, which coordinates with Public Health in Juneau and the regional health consortium.
“Things are changing so quickly,” Getchell said. “What people are seeing medically? What are our generalized numbers within the community here? What are people learning about this new variant? Because there’s, it seems like we people learn something every day. What is the hospital capacity? And then it even goes into things like, how do we interpret new guidance and guidelines? What are we supposed to do with this? How are we supposed to do that? How do we communicate this? Whose job is it to communicate this? So really, it’s kind of a coordinated effort to just holistically look at this and, and make good decisions for the community and for the school.”
At the January 4 meeting, the Haines school board looked at the scenario of cases falling and dropping mandatory masks. In that case, the board approved a ‘test to stay policy.’ That allows students who have had a close contact with someone infected with COVID-19, to remain in school if they test negative before coming to class.
“So that students are allowed to come back the next day,” Getchell said. “If they’re identified as a close contact with a mask on, and take a test and be in class and be at school and participate in school.”
Right now, with masking required, students who are close contacts in the classroom can stay in class, because masking protects from transmission. With masks optional, students would take a series of rapid tests in order to stay in class.
Despite the shorter quarantine time of five days as per CDC guidelines, the policy allows students to take a rapid at-home test on days one, two, three, and five – with all negative results, they can stay in class, while monitoring symptoms.
At-home test kits are supplied by the school. They take about 15 minutes and public health officials say they are about 80% effective. If positive, or if a student develops symptoms, they should quarantine at home and schedule a PCR test at the clinic.
The board discussed how the policy would be applied to students who were vaccinated versus unvaccinated. Board member Michael Wald urged following CDC guidelines.
“I really understand the sentiment that we don’t want to track who is vaccinated, that we don’t want to treat people differently,” Wald said. “But if the science and the CDC is saying, hey, here’s factors that contribute to transmission, I think we just need to let the science do the science. And as public health identifies whether somebody is in close contact or not. It is what it is.”
A recent study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health published in December looked at over 19,000 COVID cases, and found that those with breakthrough cases in vaccinated individuals cleared the virus quicker – on average 5.5 days, compared to unvaccinated individuals which took an average of 7.5 days.
The school district has not tracked who is vaccinated, citing personal medical information. The board agreed that the policy will apply equally to all students, and they would revisit if CDC guidelines or conditions change, and passed the proposal unanimously.