Will rising COVID cases in Henrico impact school system's planned in-person return?

In the nearly three weeks since the Henrico School Board voted to allow students to begin returning in person Nov. 30 as part of a four-phased approach, the incidence of COVID-19 cases in the county has increased significantly, prompting Henrico’s health director to urge extra caution among local residents as the holidays approach – and mobilizing some employees and parents to urge the board to reverse course.

On Wednesday, the number of average new daily cases in Henrico during a 7-day period reached its all-time high of 55.43 – a 79% increase from Oct. 22, the date of the school board’s vote, and the second time this week the county had set a new record high.

The total number of new cases per 100,000 people in the county within a moving 14-day period is up more than 60% from Oct. 22 to Nov. 9; at 212.9, it’s classified as “highest risk” by the Virginia Department of Health.

And the percentage of positive PCR tests in the county during a 14-day period also has risen, from 4.3% Oct. 22 to 5.6% (“moderate risk”) Nov. 11.

The latter two metrics are two of the three core indicators from the Virginia Department of Health’s CDC K-12 school metrics dashboard, which the agency created specifically to assist school systems determine when, or if, to reopen. Henrico Schools officials cited the dashboard regularly during discussions about their reopening plans and continue to hear updates about it from their health committee. (The third core indicator is the ability of a school system to implement five key mitigates strategies, a determination that each system must make for itself and one that Henrico officials are confident they can meet.)

The board meets again Thursday, at which time it will hear another regular update from its health committee, which most recently met last week.

When the board voted 4-1 to approve its return plan, it heard from Henrico Health Department Deputy Director Melissa Viray, who described a recent uptick in cases then not as a surge but rather a slight increase. But, she said, “If it continues to rise, we may be in front of you again saying we need to hit the breaks.”

Such a rise now appears to be taking place; Henrico has witnessed six days with new case counts of 50 or more this month after experiencing no such days during the six weeks prior to the board’s vote.

'If we have to pivot, we will'
On Wednesday, Henrico School Board Chairman Roscoe Cooper, III told the Citizen that board members are well aware of the divide among community members who support an option for in-person learning and those who believe it’s not safe for students or staff members to go back, particularly as COVID numbers continue to climb.

“I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s kind of split,” Cooper said of public sentiment. “That temperature hasn’t changed.”

Cooper said that he’s interested to hear the information presented at Thursday’s meeting by the health committee, Superintendent Amy Cashwell and other school administrators.

“We take serious their recommendations,” Cooper said of the health committee. “One thing I appreciate about our board and our staff is that if we have to pivot [from a decision because of the pandemic], we will. We said it from the very beginning, we still mean that, and we’re open to it.”

As for the rising COVID numbers, Cooper said, “I think all of us as citizens have to be concerned about it. This is serious, and I take this very serious. At the center of my concern is our staff, is our families and our students. We would never arbitrarily put them in a position where we can get them sick or it wouldn’t be safe. I know a lot of our staff don’t want to come back in the building, but we’re taking every precaution, with personal PPE, with the plexiglass in the class, around the desk, ventilation systems, deep clean – everything we can do we’re going to do to ensure their safety.”

A group of teachers and supporters who believe now is not the time to return to school in person is planning a “Rally Against Reopening” Nov. 17 at 5:30 p.m., during which they’ll march about half a mile from the Gleneagles shopping center on Ridgefield Parkway to Godwin High School.

Partial survey results show wide variations
School system officials are still working this week to complete and compile the responses to student and staff intent surveys that asked families to indicate whether they’d send their students back in person and asked employees whether they’d come back, seek accommodations to continue teaching virtually, seek leave time, resign or retire. Once those are final, officials at individual schools will have a better ability to make class-by-class plans, depending upon how many students and teachers are returning.

A report provided to the Citizen Tuesday appearing to show partial school-by-school results from the student portion of the intent survey indicated that only 13 of the county’s elementary, middle and high schools would see at least half of their students return in person, while at 28 other schools, one-third of the students or less were planning to return in person. The data included results from about 30,000 of the school system’s nearly 49,000 students.

Henrico Schools spokesman Andy Jenks told the Citizen that he hadn’t seen the specific report before and that he couldn’t verify its accuracy but said that it was consistent with the type of report the school system’s software was capable of producing and theorized that someone with access to run the systemwide data may have done so on an unknown date recently, producing the snapshot results.

But, he said, “no matter what that PDF says, the numbers wouldn’t reflect what schools are doing to directly and personally contact families, which is obviously an ongoing effort all week long.” School officials have been reaching out directly to families who didn't complete their surveys by the Nov. 8 deadline.

The report showed nine schools – all in the West End – as having received responses from the families of 90% or more of the students currently enrolled. Among those nine, the percentages varied greatly – and seemed to sway in relation to the racial makeup of each school’s student body (based upon updated demographic information that will be presented to the School Board Thursday).

At Tuckahoe Elementary School, with a response rate of 91%, nearly 85% of families said they planned to send their students back. No other mainstream school indicated a percentage higher than 64% (Tuckahoe Middle). Tuckahoe Elementary has the highest percentage of white students (92%) of any Henrico school.

But at Twin Hickory Elementary (with a response rate of 95%), only 17% said they’d return their students in person, while at Rivers Edge (89% response rate), only 21% said they’d do so. Twin Hickory’s student body is 55% Asian and only 22% white, while the Rivers Edge student body is 65% Asian (the highest such rate in the county) and 26% white.

COVID data points increasing
Speaking at a press briefing with Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney Nov. 4, Henrico and Richmond Health Director Danny Avula took a cautionary tone about the COVID-19 virus, describing how Richmond’s 7-day average number of new daily cases per 100,000 people had risen to 11.7 as of that day after starting last month at 6.6.

The same metric in Henrico is even higher – 16.8 – even though it began October at an even lower level (5.1) than Richmond’s.

Avula also said that during a COVID-testing event last week at the Eastern Henrico Health Department, some 30% of those tested were positive (though the sample size was small, because the event was advertised as being limited to just 50 people).

Henrico’s current cases-per-100,000 level is classified as “higher risk” by the VDH, while its 14-day PCR rate is labeled “moderate risk.” The former was also in the “higher risk” category two weeks ago, while the latter was in the “lower risk” category.

The percent change in new cases per 100,000 people in Henrico during the past seven days when compared to the previous seven days has skyrocketed from the “lowest risk” category Oct. 22 (at -3.2%) into the “highest risk” category as of Nov. 11 (24%).

That’s one of a handful of secondary indicators in VDH’s school metrics dashboard. Those indicators, according to the agency, should not be used as the basis for making decisions about in-person school but rather as support for those decisions.

Virginia’s Central Health District Planning Region, which includes Henrico and a number of other localities as far south as the North Carolina border, has exhibited a “substantial/high” burden level during each of the past five weeks, according to the VDH.

The school system’s website indicates that such a burden level would result in implementation of the second of four possible learning approaches, wherein most students would attend classes virtually but schools would be open on a limited basis for some students to learn in person. That’s stricter than the current approach (the third on that four-tiered plan) during the first nine weeks, during which most students are learning virtually but smaller groups are attending in-person on a limited basis.

The approach that the board approved Oct. 22 is fourth on the four-tiered list established by the school system – one that is designed for “low burden” situations, according to the school system’s website.

Currently, every elementary school in the county has had small group or one-to-one learning for some students in pre-kindergarten through third grade, according to Jenks. The total number of students at each school varies from 20 to 50, he said.

Additionally, English learners are meeting on Tuesdays and Thursdays in six hub locations, and Advanced Career Education students are meeting on a staggered basis in person in regroups of no more than five, he said.

Cooper told the Citizen that the board’s vote to phase in larger-scale in-person learning – beginning Nov. 30 with pre-kindergarten through second-graders – was important to board members, so that the system could take gradual steps.

“It gives us an opportunity to see how it goes,” he said. Of his own Fairfield District – in which less than 30% of respondents to an October survey indicated they’d return their students to school in person for the four-day plan ultimately selected by the board – Cooper said it was important to him that those who wanted an option have it.

“For me, it’s about the choice,” he said. “A lot of people in my district are suffering with virtual school. I would not have voted for an option that did not include virtual, and so for me, it’s about the choice – it’s about the choice to either stay virtual or the choice to return to the building.”

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