After a Courtade Elementary School teacher tested positive for coronavirus over the weekend, Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) made the decision – in conjunction with health officials – to quarantine the teacher’s entire classroom, moving students to virtual learning this week. At Monday’s TCAPS board meeting, Superintendent Dr. John VanWagoner used the situation to expound on the district’s plans for handling positive cases and potential outbreaks this year, and shared other COVID-related updates, including budget impacts and VanWagoner’s school-year goals.

Grand Traverse County Health Department officials notified TCAPS over the weekend that a Courtade teacher had tested positive for coronavirus. The district sent out a public press release Sunday, conducted a special deep cleaning of the elementary school, and followed the advice of health officials to have the teacher’s students quarantine at home. Parents were able to come to the school parking lot Monday morning to pick up Chromebooks to use for virtual instruction at home. The teacher who tested positive is well enough to be assisting with virtual instruction, according to VanWagoner. He said that option is available to staff who contract the disease but feel well enough to keep teaching virtually, but emphasized it’s the employee’s choice, with sick days also available to teachers who need them.

VanWagoner noted that because elementary students are contained within classroom pods, the district was able to limit quarantining to one classroom instead of shutting down the entire school. “Even on the playground, each classroom is in a different zone on the playground during play time,” said VanWagoner. “That’s how we were able to have just a classroom in this situation be quarantined and it didn’t affect the entire building.” While some parents have complained about their students not being able to play with friends from other classrooms at recess, VanWagoner said the coronavirus case illustrates how the pod system – and other safety protocols, like mandatory masks – can help prevent a schoolwide outbreak.

The positive coronavirus case – the second in the district this school year – helped TCAPS refine its protocols and prompted VanWagoner to provide more details on the district’s plan for handling infections. The superintendent said that TCAPS will notify the health department (or vice versa) whenever a staff member or student tests positive for coronavirus, with the health department then handling all contact tracing and notification of close contacts. That process includes instructing individuals to quarantine and/or get tested as needed. TCAPS will have a list of all individuals who are supposed to be quarantining and the length of time they need to remain out of school. In order to return to school, anyone suspected of coronavirus exposure must either provide TCAPS with a negative test result or a safe-to-return note from a doctor or health official.

VanWagoner said that in other scenarios – such as having multiple cases at one school, or cases at the secondary level, where pods are not in place – the district could potentially call a schoolwide “e-learning day” to give the health department enough time to complete contact tracing for everyone and ensure the school is safe before staff and students return. Numerous cases on a scale that could be considered an outbreak could warrant a two-week hiatus of face-to-face learning – as recently occurred at Michigan Tech University – while uncontrolled spread or a regional outbreak could result in schools being closed for three or more weeks. Those decisions would all be made in consultation with the health department, VanWagoner said.

Some parents expressed frustration during public comment Monday that notification is not automatically sent to an entire class when a case is present in a school, and criticized the difficulty of finding TCAPS protocols in writing on the district’s website. While some health guidelines are available online, VanWagoner promised the website would continue to be updated with more documents. He noted there are legal and other parameters that affect notification – including protecting privileged healthcare information and minimizing the potential for sick individuals to be ostracized or bullied – and said TCAPS was following health department protocols for alerting families to a potential exposure. If a family is not contacted when a positive case is announced at their school, they are not believed to be at risk as a close contact of the infected individual.

TCAPS Board Trustee Jane Klegman pointed out that the pandemic is a “fluid” situation requiring adaptability as new information and guidelines become available, and called for patience from parents. “People shouldn’t be surprised if things change, and change quickly, with the information that’s coming back,” she said. VanWagoner said it was important for the district to remain on high alert and practice vigilance when it comes to preventative measures. “We need to treat this situation like there are quarantine cases in your classroom possible every day, and we need to follow all of our safety protocols every day…so we can be in school as long as we possibly can,” he said.

The pandemic was a recurring theme at Monday night’s board meeting, where VanWagoner also shared updates on potential impacts to the district’s budget because of COVID-19 and his year-end goals as superintendent. While schools have been fearful of major slashes in funding within the state’s upcoming budget due to coronavirus, VanWagoner said the budget – which was approved by the legislature last week and is expected to be signed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer – ended up being more of a “mixed bag.”

“The real doom that was forecasted didn’t transpire,” said VanWagoner, saying that education funding essentially remained the same, with TCAPS still at the minimum foundation allowance of $8,111 per pupil. A one-time additional boost of $65 per pupil is expected to be distributed to districts next year, though VanWagoner said that with inflation and rising healthcare costs, “in the end it’s probably still a negative budget for us.” The state budget also calls for paying teachers a $500 bonus for serving as essential workers, but VanWagoner said there are “not a lot of details yet on how that’s being distributed.”

As a newly hired superintendent, VanWagoner’s contract requires him to identify his goals for the rest of school year to the board by October 1. VanWagoner told trustees that his first goal is “continuing to improve our virtual instruction offerings, as well as the platforms that we’re using for that, and that includes Google Classroom and Brightspace.” Virtual platform Brightspace has experienced technical challenges at the start of the school year, with some teachers expressing frustration with the system to board trustees. VanWagoner said he would continue to work on improving the integration of virtual software “with all of (TCAPS’) offerings.” Other goals identified by the superintendent include continuing to implement the district’s strategic plan Blueprint, working toward the board’s goal of maintaining a 10 percent fund balance, and hosting internal and external roundtables and community coffee talks to solicit feedback on TCAPS issues.