This Coast school district makes its own COVID rules, including quarantine classrooms
In the Jackson County School District, students who may be exposed to COVID-19 don’t get sent home to quarantine.
Instead, they report to designated classrooms at school. They get lunch and breakfast delivered to the room, and contact with other students is limited.
But after school, they participate in extracurricular activities and sports as usual.
“Many may feel that’s inconsistent, and I can see people’s point of view,” Superintendent Dr. John Strycker said in an interview on Friday.
The district’s practice is not in line with state health department guidelines.
At a press conference this week, State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers defined quarantine as “exclusion from the school setting.” The health department recommends it for at least seven days for all unvaccinated close contacts of someone who tests positive for COVID-19, unless both parties were masked.
In the Jackson County School District, masks are optional, and Strycker has estimated that about 5-10% of students in the Vancleave and East Central schools, and 25-30% in the St. Martin Attendance Center, wear masks.
Strycker acknowledged that the district’s quarantine policy departs from the state’s recommendations.
“We feel strongly we want our kids in school when possible,” he said.
Discussion at a board meeting
At the school board meeting on Monday, Assistant Superintendent Todd Boucher, who oversees schools in the Vancleave and East Central attendance centers, described how the policy works.
When there’s an outbreak, defined as three or more cases in a group setting, the rest of that group is moved to a specific classroom for five days.
“When they get to school, they go to that classroom,” Boucher said. “They stay in that classroom. They social distance to the best of our ability... they don’t have activities where they go out of that classroom.”
Strycker said parents may also choose to keep their students home during the isolation period.
School officials continue to monitor the isolated group for symptoms and cases during the isolation period.
“If no more cases appear in that class after the five days of isolation, they’ll resume their normal schedule,” Boucher said. “If another case pops up in that class, then we extend that for an additional five days. We just kind of keep that rolling.”
Strycker said he was aware of situations where new positive cases had been reported in a group after it was moved to in-school isolation, but he did not know how many times that had happened.
In a recent email to parents, St. Martin High School Principal Dina Holland described how the in-school quarantine works there. The quarantined classes are placed “separately in areas on campus that are less traveled, easily accessible to the isolated students, and close to staff restrooms.”
Students and parents told the Sun Herald that the classes in isolation included the entire band and a total of 200 students, or about a sixth of the student body.
“Breakfast and lunch were brought to the students, and assignments were sent through Canvas (an online learning system) as well as paper/pencil,” the email continued. “Students have the option of isolating at home working through Canvas. Because they are not on campus, MDE requires us to count students absent who do so.”
Quarantined in school, not on the field
Strycker said the district encourages parents to drive their students to school when they are in isolation, but it’s not required. That means some students are riding crowded buses to schools where it’s deemed necessary for them to spend all day in a separate classroom.
After school, they also go to sports and activities like they normally would. One elementary school teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she fears losing her job, said the isolated students at her school are also using the regular bathrooms with other students.
Strycker said the district aims to communicate with parents as much as possible, including when someone in their child’s team or club has been exposed to COVID.
“Athletics and extracurricular activities are an option for all students,” Strycker said. “Everyone knows that’s what we’re doing. If anyone thinks students are in danger, certainly they would not have to send them to those optional activities.”
By the end of the first full week of school, from Aug. 9-13, the district had 107 cases, or about 1.65% of all students, Strycker said at the board meeting on Monday.
By the second week, from Aug. 16-20, the number had risen to 396, or 4.4% of all students.
This isn’t the first year the district has taken an approach to quarantining that is at odds with health department guidelines. Last year, unlike in other Coast districts, close contacts of people who tested positive for COVID-19 were not required to quarantine.
“Why would we want healthy students out of school if our numbers are unbelievably low?” Strycker told the Sun Herald at the time.
The delta variant has made this school year different from last year, he said Friday.
“The numbers are higher,” he said. “Clearly. It’s higher.”
This story was originally published August 23, 2021 at 5:50 AM.
