Philadelphia Performing Arts Charter School Philadelphia Pa Closed Closing Closure
Some Philadelphia parents are concerned as three schools in the area have been forced to temporarily close due to COVID.
Allison Shelley / The Verbatim Bureau for EDUimages
Later nigh ii weeks of in-person schoolhouse, iii schools in Philadelphia have temporarily closed because of COVID cases.
Emlen Elementary in Mount Airy airtight Monday, as did Pan American Charter School in Fairhill. Lindley Academy, a charter schoolhouse in Logan, closed Thursday. James Garrow, spokesperson for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, confirmed all three closures.
The closures are each for 2 weeks. All of the schools said educational activity will continue virtually.
The Philadelphia school district opened its schools on Aug. 31 afterwards more than a twelvemonth of disrupted schooling during the pandemic. Commune officials have said information technology'south of import for students to render for in-person learning, though Philadelphia is i of the few big urban districts to take a virtual option available to families. Some charters, including Pan American, opened Aug. thirty.
The school district has a variety of COVID mitigation efforts in place, including air purifiers in classrooms and other spaces, social distancing, universal masking, and some testing of symptomatic students and all staff.
The schools guidance from the city health section requires schools to be closed if there are six or more cases within 14 days or "multiple COVID-19 clusters beyond grades." A grade is required to quarantine if there are iii or more cases in one grade, non concentrated in one classroom.
The Board of Education also voted terminal calendar month to let Superintendent William Hite negotiate a vaccine mandate. In a letter sent to commune employees Monday, Chief Talent Officer Larissa Shambaugh said all employees are required to submit their vaccination status past Sept. 30.
Those who are not vaccinated or are only partially vaccinated past that date volition non lose their jobs. But if they need to quarantine due to a positive COVID-nineteen test or exposure to someone who is positive, they will exist unable to use the 10 days of paid leave the district set last twelvemonth for that purpose.
And while all staff is tested for COVID once a calendar week, unvaccinated staff must be tested twice a week.
The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, the commune's largest union, supports the policy, said Hillary Linardopoulos, its spokesperson.
"We hope that as many schoolhouse staff as possible will continue to get the vaccine, and nosotros hope that the policies incentivize any unvaccinated staff to get vaccinated," she said in an e-mail.
The district is setting up six vaccine clinics from Th to Sept. 28 through the Blackness Doctors Consortium at Deliverance Evangelistic Church building at 20th St. and Lehigh Avenue.
In the letter, Shambough said a review of the district'southward testing data found that some employees were not complying with the testing requirements and could be subject field to "immediate bailiwick." She didn't specify what type of subject.
But the teachers union said it was unaware of any noncompliance.
The PFT and the commune have disagreed about some aspects of the commune'southward safety plan.
The union wants the district to conduct screening testing, in which a percentage of students are tested randomly for COVID, to find asymptomatic cases. The district has called only to test symptomatic students. Hite said screening testing was too disruptive, and the district is following the guidance from the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Children'due south Hospital of Philadelphia.
The urban center health department is currently not recommending that all students get tested regularly, except athletes and those participating in arts activities, such as band or singing, Garrow said. The district is doing that.
The union besides has raised concerns about a lack of testing supplies, inaccuracies in the district'southward COVID dashboard — which doesn't include student testing yet — and nursing vacancies.
Co-ordinate to land data, since Aug. sixteen, ane,138 children between the ages of 5 and thirteen in Philadelphia accept tested positive for COVID-xix, too as 388 among infants to 4-year-olds.
PFT president Jerry Hashemite kingdom of jordan said terminal calendar week the school nurse shortage in district schools was reaching "unsafe" levels.
Co-ordinate to the district's vacancy list, which is updated daily, there are openings for nurses in 16 commune schools and a vacancy for a "floater" nurse who travels among schools to fill in, in cases of absenteeism.
Jordan said seven nurses also were out on sick go out, which left 24 schools affected. Thirteen of those have certified substitute nurses, 11 have no nurse, and ii schools are sharing a nurse, he said.
Shakeda Gaines, president of the Philadelphia Home and School Association, said that she doesn't call up the commune has a plan to deal with COVID outbreaks and closing schools.
"What does virtual school look like now? Why isn't last year'south plan existence followed? And why don't parents and guardians know about the plan? Our trouble is that it's not equal at every school," she said.
Gaines said she believes the lack of regular pupil testing has resulted in "a lot of hidden COVID cases."
"That is problematic and that is dangerous. Nosotros would too like to know what the policy is when i child from a household with multiple children goes to one schoolhouse and has COVID?"
Some lease schools have different protocols than the district.
Mastery Schools, which enroll 12,000 students in 18 charter schools in Philadelphia, is non requiring vaccinated staff to be tested, just is testing unvaccinated staff once a week, said Kerry Woodward, Mastery'southward Deputy Chief of Institutional Advancement.
Unlike the district, Mastery is testing all students — whose parents hold — and not only those who prove symptoms. More than than xc% of parents have agreed to the testing, Woodward said.
Laura Clancy, Mastery's senior advisor for Health and Safety, said that regular COVID testing of all students follows guidance from the Centers for Illness Control and "can be a stiff prevention strategy in Yard-12 schools" when combined with other measures including vaccination, masking, ventilation and distancing.
But, in schools without routine screening, the CDC does say rapid testing of symptomatic students can help schools figure out who is sick and who was exposed.
Woodward said that, so far, no Mastery schools have closed due to a COVID outbreak. Terminal leap, Mastery opened schools for a longer time and in more grades than the district and didn't have to close any schools.
Some parents are concerned that the school district is unprepared for COVID outbreaks.
"What I take experienced in conversations with other parents is that we're all just holding our breaths waiting for our schools to be the next one,'' said parent Ashley Jiminez, who has four sons attending different schools — Anne L. Lingelbach Elementary, SLA Middle and The U School. "That's but kind of the space that parents are living in correct now because I know every bit a parent and as someone who has friends who are parents and all of that, nosotros've all received those letters already that say i student has tested positive or two students. The school may not be shut down equally of yet, but information technology's already inside of these schools, right?"
Parent Saterria Kersey, who is the president of the Habitation & Schoolhouse Clan at Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School, said the commune needs to exist more than transparent.
"It is no longer time to tiptoe around, it'south time to actually have a plan in action earlier they send our students into the buildings that are full of mold and asbestos and lead and trash on the outside of them. The district should have been fully prepared and they weren't," she said.
Parent Aileen Callaghan, who has a kid at Richmond Elementary School, said she has received six letters from the district between Sept. 2 and Sept. 11 informing her of a "student or staff member" who has tested positive for COVID-19. The district'due south dashboard reports i case at Richmond.
"I feel heartbroken. These are sicknesses that are happening in our community that don't demand to happen," Callaghan said. "I piece of work full time and I really struggled having simply 1 child dwelling house with me during virtual learning."
Source: https://philadelphia.chalkbeat.org/2021/9/14/22674433/three-schools-in-philadelphia-temporarily-close-due-to-covid-cases
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