Just before winter break, Andover Director of Nursing Rita Casper announced that school district nurses would change contact tracing protocols, reduce the number of phone calls to parents and send emails instead. -emails to the closest contacts.
Parents of unvaccinated students who are within one meter of a COVID-positive student will still receive phone calls, according to the letter.
This comes as COVID-19 cases increase in the district and across the state. Last year, there were 64 positive cases between September and December in elementary schools, but it more than doubled to 143 cases, Superintendent Magda Parvey said.
“This year the nurses are even busier,” she said, explaining that because schools are operating at full capacity and nurses are once again doing routine screenings for students.
Notifying more parents via email will help reduce the workload for nurses, Parvey said. It also helps nurses get back to their schedules, not working weekends and school holidays.
“From now on, our nurses will no longer be available to carry out contact tracing on weekends or during school holidays. Contact tracing will resume Monday or the next school day,” Casper wrote to parents.
Parvey and Casper are also imploring parents to keep their children home if they show symptoms.
“We can’t stress enough the need for parents to keep sick children home, this issue has been overwhelming to deal with across the district,” Parvey said.
She explained that in early December, six Andover High School students were all sent home after showing symptoms at school for about a week each. It created a big business for nurses to properly contact the trace, she said.
“Covid is like your cold, so if your student has symptoms, it’s best to err on the side of caution and keep your students home,” she said.
The district hopes more students will be vaccinated, as this will help reduce the likelihood of transmission. Vaccinated students can also more easily stay in school and do not have to quarantine or get tested.
So far this year, the district has administered more than 1,400 rapid tests to keep unvaccinated students and staff in school after being exposed, Parvey said.
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