Covid-19 test clinic, school reopening criteria unveiled

One week before the Port Washington-Saukville School District launches a part-time return to classes during the pandemic, administrators on Monday announced plans for a county testing clinic for students and unveiled the criteria they will use to decide when to resume full-time classes or close schools because of a Covid-19 outbreak.

School officials called the clinic a significant development because testing is key to the district’s detailed exposure plan that calls for students and staff members who have Covid-19 or have had contact with someone who does to be quarantined for weeks to prevent the spread of the virus through schools. 

Testing, not just of students but of community residents in general, is also important because it will provide data that could be the difference between a full-time return to classrooms and another school shutdown. 

Supt. Michael Weber told School Board members that administrators will rely on three criteria when deciding whether to transition to a different reopening phase —  the risk of Covid-19 transmission in the community, the number of students who are quarantined outside of school and the availability of teachers. 

Administrators who had been waiting for guidance from the Wisconsin Department of Health Service called the advice the agency recently released disappointing and are instead relying on the Covid-19 Decision-Making Framework for Schools released last week by the Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department.

The county, as well as the communities within the Port Washington-Saukville School District, were classified as high risk for the spread of the virus as of Tuesday, and the framework calls for schools to exercise caution and keep students physically distanced in separate groups, or cohorts. Administrators said their plan to divide students into two groups that attend classes on different days at its two largest schools fits within the framework given the current risk of virus transmission.

If there is a decrease in the risk level, which is measured by the number of new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people, administrators will weigh the other two factors in the reopening plan before considering whether to offer additional days of in-person instruction or fully open schools, Weber said. If the risk level jumps from high to critical, they will consider closing schools completely and offer only online instruction. 

Administrators said they will use data from ZIP codes within district, not county-wide information. 

Although Covid-19 cases are spiking in northern Ozaukee County communities, to the point where the risk level was near critical in Fredonia on Monday, they are decreasing in Port Washington, Saukville and Grafton, according to data from the County Public Health Department. 

But Bailey Murph, senior public health strategist for the Washington Ozaukee County Public Health Department, cautioned this week that those numbers may be misleading because the decrease in cases coincides with a decline in the number of tests administered, which is attributable in part to a shortage of tests.

That lends importance to the student-only testing clinic being organized by the Public Health Department. The clinic, which is to be operated by a health care provider, would offer free tests to students who cannot easily obtain them through their physicians or would have to wait several days for the results, Murph said, noting plans are still preliminary. 

The clinic is expected to open in early September and provide testing three days a week. The  goal, Murph said,  is to provide results within one or two days. The location of the clinic, as well as whether a referral from a doctor or a school nurse would be required for a student to be tested, has yet to be determined. 

“This (the clinic) is going to be a huge asset to us,” Weber said. “If we didn’t have a clinic, it could take longer for our students to get tested and even longer to get the results.”

The announcement of the clinic comes as the Port Washington-Saukville School District plans the only part-time reopening of districts in the county. All other school systems are planning a full-time return to classrooms with the exception of the Mequon-Thiensville School District, which last week scrapped plans for a regular return and instead will start the school year with only online instruction after a spike in local Covid-19 cases attributed by health officials to gatherings, in particular graduation parties. 

At Port Washington High School and Thomas Jefferson Middle School, which will open in Phase 2 of what the Port-Saukville District calls its re-entry plan, students will attend in-person classes two days a week and participate in online classes three days a week. Under the so-called cohort model, students at both schools will be divided into two groups, with one group attending classes on Mondays and Tuesdays and the other in school on Thursdays and Fridays.

The district’s three elementary schools, where there is more room to separate students and in-person learning is considered more important, will open in Phase 3. Students will be in school four days a week and be taught online one day a week.

All schools, which will be cleaned daily, will be closed on Wednesdays for deep cleaning except on short weeks.

Phase 4 calls for a regular five-day school week. In Phase 1, schools are closed and students are taught online only. 

The district is also offering online only education for students whose parents don’t want them to return to classrooms, an option chosen by 212 students or about 8% of the district’s 2,600 students.

The district had planned to outsource all online-only instruction to the CESA 9 school consortium and Wisconsin eSchool Network but has decided to offer that instruction itself to middle school students and those in fourth grade.

Administrators said they believe the district’s reopening plan gives it the best chance of averting a school shutdown or at least delaying one during a pandemic that experts warn could worsen in fall and winter. 

“Our goal is to extend in-person learning as long as we possibly can so we can build those critical relationships between teachers and students,” Weber said. 

While students will return to classrooms next week, teachers reported to schools Monday. But instead of the traditional all-staff member assembly in the Port High Performing Arts Center, meetings were held via Zoom and in small groups. 

“Today was a really special day with our staff back in the building,” Port High Principal Thad Gabrielse said. “It just looked different, as everything does these days.”

Thomas Jefferson Middle School Principal Steve Sukawaty said that in addition to teaching, the focus of the school is on keeping students and staff members safe from the virus.

“We stressed how important it is that we are masked, that we social distance and that we wash our hands,” he said. “There are just a lot of logistics involved in keeping kids safe.”