NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas — The Comal Independent School District is two weeks away from the start of the school year.
On Tuesday, parents were asked to make their final decision between in-person instruction or remote learning for their children.
Morningside Elementary administrators posted a video to Facebook showing families what they can expect if they chose physically return to campus on August 25.
Meanwhile, the district plans to follow Texas Education Agency guidelines for handling reported cases of COVID-19, should a positive case impact a CISD campus.
This week, a Canyon High School band member had to quarantine after testing positive for the virus.
It is the only active case among CISD students. Since June 1st, the district reports 18 other students have recovered. The district also says all student positives have been traced back to off-campus exposure.
Among employees, 28 have tested positive for the coronavirus in the last two months, with seven cases still active.
Superintendent Andrew Kim said that if a student tests positive this fall, they will be required to quarantine for 14 days, per guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control that have been in place for months. Classmates can return to school if they adhered to the mask policy, particularly when exposed to the student who tested positive.
Face coverings are required for all students, regardless of age or grade level.
“If there is a viral spread due to internal factors, meaning that multiple students are getting confirmed due to being in school… if that were to be the case, then we can close up to five days,” said Superintendent Andrew Kim in a Guiding Principles video posted to the district’s website.
Not all parents and staff are confident of the district’s plan.
“Children and educators deserve better,” said one woman while addressing the Comal County Commissioners court at its Thursday meeting. She was among several who spent about 20 minutes expressing concerns over the school district proceeding with in-person instruction options.
“I am sincerely and genuinely concerned about the health and wellbeing of my students, first and foremost—my own child being one of them,” said another citizen addressing county officials.
A district spokesperson addressed the concerns, saying in a statement:
“Our priorities for returning to school is the education of our students and the health and safety of our teachers, staff and students. To that end, we have been diligently working to implement all of the guidelines outlined for us by the Texas Education Agency.”
The district also has a communication plan in place for notifying classmates and schools of cases on campus.
CISD will stay in contact with the sick student and parent. The department or class will be notified while the privacy of the student is protected, and a general notification will be sent out to the entire school.
“We're going to launch a dashboard to the public where you can kind of go in and see what are we actively managing as a district and also on individual campuses,” said Joe McKenna, the district's director of safety and security.
This is the full response from a Comal ISD Spokesperson:
“Since June 1, 19 students have received positive tests. However, we currently only have one active student case at this time.
Through our case management process, we have not identified any transmission between students during participation in on-campus activities. All student positives have been traced back to an off-campus exposure.
At this time, we do not have any students experiencing symptoms.
Since June 1, 28 employees have received positive tests. We currently have seven active employee cases at this time.
Teachers and staff who have concerns about their work situation can contact the human resources department to discuss their situation.
On July 28, every employee in the district received an anonymous survey link that asked teachers to state their level of confidence in the safety protocols that will be in place on our campuses after reviewing the 2020-21 School Launch Strategic Plan. Of the more than 800 that responded, 52% stated they had confidence in the plan.
In addition, one of the pieces of feedback that we received from teachers was regarding face coverings and that no all students would be required to wear one. As a result, we are now requiring face coverings for all students regardless of age or grade level.
Our priorities for returning to school is the education of our students and the health and safety of our teachers, staff and students. To that end, we have been diligently working to implement all of the guidelines outlined for us by the Texas Education Agency.
The positivity data that is being referenced is readily available to all of our parents and can be used by them to make an informed decision for themselves whether it is safe to send their children to school or if they should take the remote learning option that we are providing.”