Surge or not, Peninsula district is sticking to plans to bring kids back to school

The Peninsula School District has no plans to delay the return of second-graders set for Nov. 30, a district spokesman confirmed this week, despite the recent upsurge in COVID-19 cases and increasing unease among teachers and parents.

There had previously been two outbreaks consisting of four cases in the district, which led to the delay of in-person schooling for second-graders from an original planned return date of Nov. 12. The district is currently offering in-person developmental preschool, kindergarten, and first grade.

The continued commitment to the plans come following a Sunday news conference by Gov. Jay Inslee announcing increased restrictions on a variety of indoor services. The governor stopped short of placing any restrictions on school districts, saying “schools have been historically local controlled decisions by local school boards and local communities.”

A much-anticipated “rapid testing” program for Peninsula and three other rural districts is still not operational.

The surge in cases continued this week, with 237 new cases reported Sunday, bringing the Pierce County total to 12,879 cases, with 211 deaths. Gig Harbor cases grew to 384, with 5 reported deaths — four of the deaths added in the last week. Key Peninsula had 106 cases and two deaths, one in the last week.

Third-wave concerns

Carol Rivera, president of the Peninsula Education Association, the teachers’ union, said “there is great concern especially now as our third wave is hitting” with the district “moving forward with in-person learning as numbers rise.”

Rivera highlighted a need to improve the process of informing teachers and faculty if they come into contact with someone who tests positive.

“It appears that the district and individuals have a lot of responsibility in contact tracing,” Rivera said. “The district needs to review and make those processes more clear.”

Rivera said that the rising spread in Pierce County makes it “irresponsible” to consider bringing back more in-person teaching without seeing a decrease in cases first.

“I think that schools are a reflection of the community,” Rivera said. “The only way it gets into schools is from students and staff being back in school. The disease in our community needs to be mitigated before we can bring students back full scale.”

‘Difficult decision’

The callback of second-graders was originally set for Thursday, Nov. 12.

Superintendent Art Jarvis said two weeks ago the district made the “difficult decision” to delay the return after consultation with the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.

Jarvis said there has been a recent coronavirus case at Purdy Elementary and current cases — he did not say how many — at Peninsula High School. He said there had been “no exposure” in the schools — meaning the persons with the virus had been presumably infected outside the school system.

Students in Kindergarten and first grade have been attending school in-person for six weeks. There have been no COVID-19 cases among them, Jarvis said.

Contributing to the decision to delay the second-grade return, Jarvis said, was the fact that the pilot testing program to be run in cooperation with the health department was not yet ready to deploy. He said there were “technical decisions” to be made and more meetings scheduled with the district-appointed task force.

“We know this delay of 2nd-graders returning to in-person learning will disappoint many students, families, and staff. We have all prepared with schedule adjustments and tireless work for a safe originally planned Nov. 12 return.”

The Peninsula School district and the health department had a highly public dispute earlier this month over a return to school for younger grades, which the TPCHD has always resisted. The upshot was the hasty announcement of a “rapid testing program” for Peninsula and three other rural school districts, which was supposed to have allowed younger children, up to 5th grade, to return to school in stages. Details of the pilot program remain sketchy.

Reach Chase Hutchinson at chasehutchinson@thenewstribune.com

This story was originally published November 6, 2020 at 7:35 PM.