As Henrico School Board weighs return options, most health metrics are encouraging

Limited in-person learning opportunities are underway at Henrico County’s public schools, but it’s the timing of a potential return for all students who choose that path that is on the minds of parents and teachers alike these days.

Thursday, the Henrico School Board received promising updates from its health committee about the COVID-19 metrics that it’s using to help weigh the safety of a potential return and about the amount of available personal protective equipment, the condition of heating and air conditioning systems in schools and other key protocols.

The board plans to make a decision at its next meeting, Oct. 22, about whether to provide the option of in-person learning for all students during the second nine weeks of school, beginning Nov. 16. Surveys for full-time staff members and for families of students – open through Oct. 11 – will aid the board in its decision.

The Virginia Department of Health’s burden metric for the Central Virginia region — a designation that considers several factors related to the virus and its spread – is currently in the “moderate” range with a decreasing trend, Henrico Schools Chief of Staff Beth Teigen told board members during their Oct. 8 work session. That places it squarely in the middle of the risk scale for the region, which includes the Henrico, Chesterfield, Richmond, Chickahominy, Southside, Piedmont and Crater health districts.

The VDH also recently established a K-12 school metrics dashboard, based upon Centers for Disease Control guidance, that is designed to help school divisions throughout the state better determine the risk of transmission in their localities. The dashboard weighs three core metrics and four secondary ones.

In Henrico, two of the three core metrics – the 14-day COVID-19 positivity percentage (3.4% as of Oct. 8) and the ability of the school system to implement five key mitigation strategies – are considered “lower risk,” while the number of new cases per 100,000 residents (87.47 as of Oct. 8) is considered “higher risk.”

The five mitigation strategies include the use of masks; social distancing; hand hygiene/respiratory etiquette; cleaning/disinfection; and contact tracing with the local health department.

VDH guidelines instruct school divisions to assess themselves in those categories. HCPS officials concluded that the school system is “lower risk” because it could manage all strategies, except for the ability to maintain six feet of space between students and between students and adults at all times, Teigen said.

“Lowest” and “lower risk” schools correlate to Virginia’s Phase 3 guidance and can offer in-person instruction to all students if space permits six feet of distance between people, according to VDH guidelines.

Board member Marcie Shea, who represents the Tuckahoe District, asked if the number of new cases per 100,000 included those in congregational living facilities.

“That’s one of the reasons why we work so collaboratively with the health department,” Teigen said, “is so that we know the underlying story behind the data as well.”

Teacher, parent emotions run high

Some teachers who want the system to remain in fully virtual mode for at least another nine weeks attended Thursday's work session dressed in red to illustrate their feelings. The debate about whether to return has riled emotions on both sides, with a number of parents urging the School Board to provide a choice for those who do want to send their students back, just as a choice will exist all year for those who want to keep their students in virtual mode.

But providing that choice would be difficult or impossible without a sufficient number of teachers willing to return. Many teachers were upset that the survey they received – asking how they would proceed if in-person learning resumes – didn't include an option to continue teaching virtually without asking for a medical exception. The survey provided six options – return to school, retire, resign, seek one of two forms of leave time or seek permission to teach virtually.

The Henrico Education Association found itself in a bit of hot water with Superintendent Amy Cashwell this week, after a video surfaced that showed several teachers and an HEA board member (Highland Springs High School teacher Ryan Burgess) discussing the possibility of skewing the employee survey by selecting several possible options instead of just one. Burgess later said she was expressing frustration and not actually suggesting that teachers skew the results, but Cashwell sent a sternly worded letter to the HEA saying in part that the video "does not reflect the kind of productive problem-solving approach I’ve become accustomed to from the HEA."

In a statement, HEA President John Reaves said that the teachers' discussion – in what they believed was a private meeting – was not an HEA meeting and didn't reflect the organization's views.

Teachers – along with other public employees in Virginia – are not currently permitted to engage in collective bargaining or to go on strike, but that could change beginning May 1, when a new law passed this year by the General Assembly takes effect. It would allow the formation of unions and authorize collective bargaining, if individual the governing bodies of individual localities approve such efforts within their jurisdictions.

No COVID cases reported in child care settings at schools

Career and Technical Education students entered Advanced Career Education centers this week, Teigen said, and the Henrico Police Athletic League, YMCA and Henrico Education Foundation are offering child care in school buildings.

“As we come to the end of week 5, I am happy to report that there have been no cases of COVID-19 amongst the nearly 700 students and staff,” Teigen said.

School Health Services Supervisor Robin Gilbert told board members that the division feels confident that it has the necessary PPE for a return to school.

Additionally, each school received seven acrylic cough guards: five for their main offices and public areas and two for exceptional education partners to use during evaluations, Gilbert said.

Plexiglass barriers are being added in high traffic areas, Chief of Operations Lenny Pritchard said, and teachers for pre-K through 12th grade will have barriers for their work spaces. The division already has Plexiglass desk shields for pre-K through first grade students but has ordered shields for all students.

Barriers are being made or ordered for small group tables for Pre-K through fifth grade classrooms, Pritchard said. The desk partitions would provide protection when students and teachers eat lunch in classrooms, Gilbert said.

Lunch could be eaten outside if weather permits, Teigen later said after prompting from Shea.

Pritchard said that each school’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems were flushed with continuous air operation for a week before the start of the school year and now are being flushed for an hour each day.

HVAC filters and potential upgrades have received scrutiny in previous work sessions.

“Filters are being upgraded in accordance with the system designs,” Pritchard said in his presentation, and later added that “using an improper air filter that is too restrictive for our system may cause low airflow issues.”

Pritchard said that opening doors and windows can increase allergens and humidity in buildings, causing poor air quality, potential overheating and wear and tear on the system.

Protocol for COVID-exposed students
Whenever school resumes in person, the school system will use the VDH algorithm for when exposed students can return to school for students and staff. If a confirmed COVID-19 case is reported, the division will notify the Henrico Health Department and provide a list of contacts who spent a total of 15 minutes or more within 6 feet of the person, regardless of whether face coverings were worn.

Anyone confirmed with COVID would be required to isolate for at least 10 days from the start of their symptoms or the date of a positive test. At the end of 10 days and when the person has been fever-free for 24 hours without fever-reducing medicine and had improvement in all other symptoms, he or she can return to school.

Close contacts will be informed and kept out of school for 14 days. If they develop symptoms or test positive in that time, case protocol will begin and they will isolate for 10 days.

On Monday, the CDC admitted that COVID-19 can spread through airborne transmission and that the virus might be able to infect people who are farther than 6 feet away from an infected person or after an infected person has left the space, Chairman Roscoe Cooper, III said. He asked how the health committee was considering this information and how it would impact in-person learning.

“I think some of it is trying to look at it in context. . . contact-tracing means you need to be in with that person for 15 consecutive minutes within a 6-foot space,” Teigen said, “and so what does that mean in a classroom?

“And those are conversations that the health committee will have and with [the director of Richmond and Henrico health departments] Dr. [Danny] Avula and others. We have epidemiologists that sit on our committee that are able to help decipher what does that really mean in this situation. I think there’s so much information out there and it’s how do you really take all of it to say what does that mean for us in our situation.”

– Citizen Editor Tom Lappas contributed to this article

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