Fairbanks hits the breaks on five-day school week
Citing an outbreak of cases in the district, Fairbanks school officials have decided to hold off on a plan to reopen the buildings at 100% capacity.
“We are pausing our transition to Learning Level 1 to gather additional information and observe the impact these recent cases have on our school community,” Superintendent Adham Schirg said Thursday morning.
Last week Fairbanks announced it would move from Learning Level 2, which has half of the students in the building for two days and learning remotely the other days, to Learning Level 1 where students would attend in-person classes five days a week. That full time, in-person learning was set to begin Monday
At the time of that decision, however, the district had not seen any positive cases of COVID-19 within the student or staff population.
Schirg said the district learned of a first positive case on Thursday. Since then, there has been an additional four cases. In addition, 11 students and three staff members are being quarantined because of close contact with positive individuals. A close contact is identified as someone who has been within 6 feet for a collective 15 minutes with an individual who is positive with COVID-19.
There are test results pending for some of these close contacts.
Schirg said the decision to halt the switch to Learning Level 1 was made because it is important to “shift as the information shifts.”
“The sudden rush was a surprise to us,” Schirg said.
District and health officials said the virus typically runs its course over a 14-day period. Schirg said the district will wait the 14 days and reevaluate options the week of Oct. 12-16.
The superintendent said it is better for the educational as well as social and mental well-being of students to be in class.
“Everybody wants that,” Schirg said. “But we have to balance that desire with the health and safety of our students, staff and community.”
Schirg said the balance is “tough to strike and these decisions are extremely difficult.”
He said one of the district’s goals is that, “we don’t want to go to fully remote.”
He said that by staying at Learning Level 2, it helps assure the district does not need to make that move.
The superintendent said he and other officials understand that if the district were at full capacity, “the number of close contacts would have been substantially higher.”
He said the higher numbers would mean teachers, drivers and support staff would be limited in their job capacities and students would be limited in their contact with other students and activities.
“That is a concern for us,” Schirg said.
Officials said the cases cannot be traced to a single incident or to school-related contact, but rather are considered “community spread.”
Monday’s board work session will deal with “all the pieces we hadn’t worked through up to this point,” Schirg said, specifically mentioning contact tracing, notifying parents and communicating with the community and officials.
Schirg said that in addition to allowing the quarantine time to expire, the additional time “will also reveal if we have a school-based spread.”
“Right now, we do not believe there is, however that can change,” Schirg said.
Officials said they know the community wants information about how the district will decide when to move from one level to another.
“This question has been asked a lot and unfortunately, there is not a simple answer,” Schirg said. “The answer is a totality of circumstances.”
He said the district evaluates a variety of information to create an overall picture for the district.
“This totality of circumstances influences potential shifts,” Schirg said.
Officials are thanking students and staff for patience during the process.
“We do need help from our staff, our students and our families,” Schirg said. “We know rising case counts and quarantines create uncertainty. Our community should work to spread support, not fear.”