Peninsula tells parents in-person learning is on. County health officials say not so fast

The Peninsula School District has a plan to “partner” with the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department to continue in-person learning, Superintendent Art Jarvis announced Wednesday.

That announcement “surprised us” the health department said in a statement, and implied that it might be premature.

Jarvis said the district is part of a coalition of small and rural districts that will partner with the health department in a pilot program, sponsored by TPCHD, to try rapid COVID-19 testing in the schools. The health department would support the pilot program with supplies and instructional materials, he said.

The health department seemed caught off guard by the announcement and later issued a “clarification.”

“While we are exploring a pilot program for rapid COVID-19 testing for K-3 grade students in rural districts, we are in the planning stages and have not finalized these arrangements,” the unsigned statement said.

“Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department just received approval on the funding for the pilot program today,” it continued. “The details of any partnership haven’t been fully developed.”

Delay for grade 2

Jarvis said the pilot testing program would allow the district to continue with in-person learning for kindergartners and first graders, who have already been back in school for a month. It would also permit the district to continue plans to bring back second graders, although that would now be delayed a week, until Nov. 12.

“This is excellent news, as evidence shows our children are thriving safely in the in-person setting,” Jarvis said. “By partnering in this pilot, TPCHD is supportive of our continuation of in-person learning while we work out the details of the program.”

The news came on the same day that Pierce County announced 107 new COVID-19 cases. With a six-day data lag required in the state’s Safe Start measurements, the county’s case rate per 100,000 is 114, well above the “high” range.

Since beginning in-person learning for K-1 children in late September, the district has recorded no COVID-19 cases among students or staff, Jarvis told the school board last week.

No early indicators of change

Earlier Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Chen, director of the Pierce County Health Department, noted in a separate interview with The News Tribune — before the district’s announcement — that the current numbers are “way above that 75 per 100,000 for what the decision tree says is the high rate.”

Chen gave no indication in the interview that any change in course regarding the district’s plans was on the immediate horizon.

However, district media representative Aimee Gordon said the pilot program was the health department’s idea.

“We’re surprised that they’re surprised,” Gordon said, because Jarvis and Chen hashed it all out over the weekend.

“They approached us with the idea last weekend,” she said in an email. “We’ve been hopeful, waiting to learn more details the past few days. We have also been in discussion with Bruce Dammeier. He’s been a huge supporter of our partnership.”

Dammeier is county executive and sits on the Board of Health.

The other “small or rural” districts that would participate were not identified, but Gordon said they are White River, Carbonado and Eatonville. They are in rural areas which, like the Peninsula, have not had the kind of COVID-19 numbers that have put the rest of the county in lockdown.

The TPCHD “clarification” used careful wording to put the onus for the decision on the Peninsula School District.

“We are glad Peninsula School District Superintendent Jarvis is exerting his authority to determine a path forward for in-person learning for the district’s K-3 grade students,” the statement read. “However, his announcement this afternoon concerning the COVID-19 rapid testing pilot surprised us.

“While school districts determine how to implement health department recommendations concerning in-person learning, we have not yet finalized plans for this testing pilot.”

A ‘task force’ for callback

The rolling callback of Peninsula students would be supervised by a yet-to-be-formed task force, Jarvis said.

“I have just now assigned district senior leadership the task of exploring this opportunity by leading an inclusive task force,” Jarvis said. “This group will include a variety of stakeholders, including staff and community members. Together, the task force will look at the pilot program and determine how it can work in our district.

“While we are exploring this opportunity, we will continue providing our dual in-person/remote learning platform for kindergarten and 1st grade students as we have been doing since Sept. 28, and will continue moving forward with bringing back 2nd grade students for in-person learning one week later than planned.”

Second-grade children whose parents elected in-person learning would return on Nov. 12., Jarvis said. Special-education students, students with disabilities and others in various grades who have been attending in small groups would continue to do so, he said.

“I understand the last few days have been challenging, and I appreciate your understanding as we work to find solutions that allow for staff and students to come together for in-person learning,” Jarvis said. “As soon as we have more details about this program, we will let you know.”

Angry parents

Both the school board and the health department have been under intense pressure from angry parents who want their children back in school, even as others choose online learning.

Just last week, Jarvis had to tell the Peninsula School Board that, because of a countywide spike in coronavirus numbers, the district would be forced by the health department to return to full remote learning on Nov. 2.

“We are looking at a 3-to-5 week period, possibly longer,” he said then.

The school board took the news hard, and several members berated Chen personally.

“I’m more than disheartened, I am maddened,” said Deborah Krishnadasan, the school board president. “I’m ticked off. Our area has done so well. To pull our kids out of school now is going to do more harm than good.”

Jarvis has been arguing for months that the Gig Harbor and Key peninsulas, which have have had relatively low COVID-19 rates, should be considered separately from the rest of the county, but said he had not been able to persuade Dr. Chen. The 14-day case average for Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula has hovered between 30 and 40, well within the county’s “moderate” range.

“TPCHD has local control over the county as a whole and will not make exceptions for specific areas within the county,” Jarvis told parents in an email Oct. 16.

The district had been planning on staging the remaining elementary grades back to in-person schooling at two-week intervals, beginning the first week of November.

A hybrid model — remote learning for some and in-person school for others, perhaps by shifts — will be necessary for higher grades, Jarvis told the school board, because with smaller classes and social distancing, by the time 2nd-graders are returned, “we will be running out of both space and teachers.”

Latest information on school re-opening is on the Peninsula School District website, www.pds401.net

Allison Needles of The News Tribune contributed to this story.

This story was originally published October 28, 2020 at 7:27 PM.