By Heather Graves
Editor
GREEN BAY – The Green Bay School Board is changing its isolation policies for students and staff who’ve tested positive for COVID-19.
The board unanimously approved the change at its first meeting of the new year, Monday, Jan. 10.
The change comes as the district continues to struggle with staff shortages, which has caused some schools to move to temporary virtual learning.
“We did not realize we were going to get this high of a case rate at this particular time,” Claudia Henrickson, executive director of Student Services, said.
Henrickson said district nurses are currently working 12-14 hours a day.
Under the new policy, which will begin no later than Jan. 18, if a student or staff member tests positive for COVID, they should isolate for five days.
If their symptoms have resolved, they can return on day 6.
Isolation start dates are dependent on whether they have symptoms.
If the student or staff member is symptomatic, isolation starts the day symptoms start.
If they are asymptomatic, isolation starts the day they were tested.
“Most people are feeling quite well, we’re finding, with this new strain, even within three to four days,” District Nurse Kristen Johnson said. “It seems like there’s either one of two extremes, they’re not or they are. Symptoms are much more mild with the current strain that’s going on, but certainly more contagious.”
Johnson said the recommendation behind the Jan. 18 effective date is due to the number of students and staff members in isolation now.
“It feels like it should be a lightswitch, but it’s not that simple,” she said. “(We’d) have to contact 170 staff members to readjust their isolation dates to get them back into school. Right now for students, it’s 514 students we would have to contact. We don’t have the manpower to try and do that, and we can’t leave schools to do that. And that is the honest to God truth on that one.”
The shortened isolations align with recently updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), something the district has consistently stuck to.
“What I feel like we’ve been able to consistently rely on is going off of CDC guidance, right?” Board President Eric Vanden Heuvel said. “As a district, we’ve been able to say, ‘Hey this is what we’re going to hang our hat on, we’re not medical experts, that’s what we’re going to go off of.’”
As of Wednesday, Jan. 12, according to the district’s dashboard, 360 staff members are out for COVID-related reasons – 176 in isolation and 184 in quarantine.
The dashboard lists 2545 students out – 561 in isolation and 1984 in quarantine.
“(Monday) was worse than last week when we first came back from break,” Johnson said. “We talked about how our administration from the district office building are down in the schools teaching. There are no extra bodies to help us do things… It’s nonstop.”
Superintendent Stephen Murley said the district isn’t seeing significant spread in schools.
“Most of the issues we’re dealing with are coming from outside of school,” Murley said. “Certainly, the mitigation factors we have in place right now, which include masking, physical distancing, HVAC and handwashing are making an enormous difference inside school.”
No changes were made to the district’s quarantine policy.
The board plans to revisit the topic at a special meeting scheduled at the end of the month.
“I think the most important thing we could tell the community right now, and I would tell this to anyone that I was talking to, ‘If you have any symptoms, I don’t care how mild they are. If you have a sniffle, a sore throat, a cough, nausea, vomiting, etc. – have a COVID test, because chances are right not it’s COVID, don’t ignore it,” Johnson said.