MA parents: how are you feeling about the discontinuation of test & stay

[Snow mom]

I know there are a lot of parents from MA on here. We got notice tonight that our district will be moving to the new system of optional weekly surveillance testing and will be discontinuing both in school contact tracing and test & stay. Basically, any student can opt in to receive a weekly antigen test which they are to take on Wednesday morning at home and report any positive tests to the district. The district will only be testing symptomatic kids and won't be contacting close contacts, having people quarantine for close contacts, or testing close contacts.

I have mixed feelings. Both my kids are vaccinated and I've received so many calls telling me my child has been exposed and to monitor for symptoms (that's all that's required since they are vaccinated.) I just assume they've been exposed every day when they go to school as I'm sure we don't actually hear of every exposure, and sometimes I only get notification many days later meaning they could totally already be contagious by the time I hear. But I guess I appreciate that non-vaccinated kids are either tested daily or quarantined, although I fully admit the way they've designed both the testing protocol and quarantine protocol is super stupid with the new variant. I'd rather see them update how they are testing at school, especially with the kids who seem most likely to have covid being the ones least likely to opt into optional at home testing.

I'm also skeptical because our district (and state IMO) have been super stingy with data. There's no knowing what evidence they have of in school transmission or lack of in school transmission. I am 100% positive my friends third grader caught covid at school in my town, but to hear the superintendent tell it there is no evidence of in school transmission. I'd trust that someone smart is looking at the data and making data driven decisions more if policies throughout this whole pandemic hadn't been so politically motivated.

Ultimately, the risk of school is something we've decided to take on but I still am sighing over here with the latest update.

[cckwmh]

I just checked what we received from our superintendent. As of right now this new at home test program is in addition to test and stay and pool testing. I was surprised. He did say as the program was launched the other two programs would be reevaluated.

I totally agree with the manipulation of the data. At one point half of our high school football team and the entire girls soccer team was out either with Covid or exposure. But there were zero cases in the high school. Because the exposure was thought to be during an outdoor sport not during the school hours, they did not count as school transmission. Complete BS.

My youngest was in the test and stay program until she was fully vaccinated. She was getting tested all.the.time. Now thar she is vaccinated and not eligible for it, i miss it, especially with omicron.

Part of me thinks, ok, we are starting to transition from pandemic to endemic, but a bigger part of me thinks we are not there yet.

[doberbrat]

But I guess I appreciate that non-vaccinated kids are either tested daily or quarantined, although I fully admit the way they've designed both the testing protocol and quarantine protocol is super stupid with the new variant. I'd rather see them update how they are testing at school, especially with the kids who seem most likely to have covid being the ones least likely to opt into optional at home testing.

(bolded mine)

This! The ones lest likely to mask, to vaccinate etc are the most likely to not believe covid is a problem and are the ones spreading it for the most part.

I totally agree with the manipulation of the data. At one point half of our high school football team and the entire girls soccer team was out either with Covid or exposure. But there were zero cases in the high school. Because the exposure was thought to be during an outdoor sport not during the school hours, they did not count as school transmission. Complete BS.

My youngest was in the test and stay program until she was fully vaccinated. She was getting tested all.the.time. Now thar she is vaccinated and not eligible for it, i miss it, especially with omicron.

Part of me thinks, ok, we are starting to transition from pandemic to endemic, but a bigger part of me thinks we are not there yet.

I agree with this as well. Everyone keeps saying 'no inschool transmission' yet the wee we had nearly 100+ cases at the HS, the first 50ish were from a Senior party held by parents. Those kids then spread it in school but hey, no in school transmission.....

I just wish we waited to change the rules till things were calm again.

[ang79]

(bolded mine)

This! The ones lest likely to mask, to vaccinate etc are the most likely to not believe covid is a problem and are the ones spreading it for the most part.



I agree with this as well. Everyone keeps saying 'no inschool transmission' yet the wee we had nearly 100+ cases at the HS, the first 50ish were from a Senior party held by parents. Those kids then spread it in school but hey, no in school transmission.....

I just wish we waited to change the rules till things were calm again.

Our school is touting the same about no in school transmission. I’m 99% sure one of my kids brought it home from
School because we hadn’t been to church since the week after Christmas, and do very little other than school, and the girls and I wear masks everywhere. Our school is also not doing contact tracing. I contacted DD1’s best friend’s mom after we had positive tests because I know the 2 girls eat lunch together everyday, so unmasked, and I know her friend is unvaccinated. She did not have to quarantine from school. A friend’s elem. daughter also caught Covid at school and took it home to her fully vaccinated family. Despite greatly increased numbers in our schools in the past 2 weeks among staff and students, no classes or schools have closed temporarily and masks are still optional. Its like they want it to impact every single person. While it’s great that most kids only have mild symptoms, what about the families they are taking it home to? And what about the unlucky few young ones who have harsher symptoms or get long haul issues?


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[PZMommy]

We are definitely seeing in school transmission, but since we are in surge mode the health dept and district aren’t keeping track (but still love to say no in school transmission). My district has weekly mandatory testing. We have a case of a student testing positive last week, and now this week 3 of his close contacts (the 3 people they sit next to in class) have all tested positive. We did not have this problem in the fall. We had a positive teacher last week (she was symptomatic one day but had a negative rapid and came to work), and now quite a few in the class are positive. This is just at my school, but similar things are happening at schools across the district!

[chlobo]

We are definitely seeing in school transmission, but since we are in surge mode the health dept and district aren’t keeping track (but still love to say no in school transmission). My district has weekly mandatory testing. We have a case of a student testing positive last week, and now this week 3 of his close contacts (the 3 people they sit next to in class) have all tested positive. We did not have this problem in the fall. We had a positive teacher last week (she was symptomatic one day but had a negative rapid and came to work), and now quite a few in the class are positive. This is just at my school, but similar things are happening at schools across the district!

Curious what mask wearing is like in your school. I realize there are so many variable (types of masks, spacing etc.) but I'm just curious.

Our middle school basically said that there is so much transmission going on that they don't think it's worthwhile (or feasible) to do contact tracing. Instead, they will notify parents if someone turns up positive in their grade. We have had a reported case in my son's grade everyday this week. We still do pool testing and have good participation compared to before Christmas.

At the high school, I think they are trying to do contact tracing. They do do pool testing but during this surge its been kind of a sh*t show. The week after Christmas 10 pools of 10 tested positive so they had to retest 100 kids. Since they couldn't do them all at once, they sent them to class and called them down by pools.

At our schools, test and stay was only for unvaccinated individuals. And they said they found very few cases using the program. Our school does have a mask mandate that is very strictly enforced. Not sure if that made a difference. I think due to sheer numbers of cases, they are no longer able to continue it. Our town also has PCR testing available (Mon-Sat), which has been invaluable for close contacts.

Both my kids were able to be in school for all of last year (except for a short time at the beginning of school) and this year and I am forever grateful for the hard work that administrators and teachers at both schools have been doing in order to keep things afloat. Are they learning as much? Very likely not but being in school is far better for them than being at home every way. Additionally, sports have been ongoing and my son's middle school has kept up with extra-curriciulars.

[PZMommy]

My son has been at school for 4 days and woke up with a fever and had an instant positive on a rapid test today. He has been nowhere but school due to all his risk factors!!

Mask wearing here is mandatory. It is strictly enforced at school. And surgical masks or higher required. There is no social distancing though.

The district just announced today that no more notifying of cases and no more contract tracing. They have too many cases to deal with. There is tons of school spread, but the district doesn’t want to admit it!

[dogmom]

I guess I'm not sure. I only have one kid left in K-12 and they are in a Technical HS that is separate from our district, so it's a small group, <600 kids total, all>14, so not a full range of ages. I'm not sure what the school is claiming. They send out numbers of staff and kids that have tested positive. Close contacts are notified to the best of their ability. They seem pretty ruthless about sending kids to nurse to get tested if they have symptoms in school. They are enforcing masking more and recommending N95 and got them for the teachers.

I am neutral on the test and stay program. I really liked the idea in the fall, but given I don't think the rapids are nearly as good at picking up this strain I think it's a lot of work for the nurse and school with less upside now. I'm also not sure where the "denying spread in school is coming from." Part of it is we need to get over asking, "How did you get it?!" Just about everyone I know who got Covid is, "but I never go anyway" and then I quote back to them the things I know they have done. Human nature, we want to find someone to blame. it's a virus, it's a the air. One can be more or less responsible, like I think masks should be mandatory because it's such low hanging fruit. Same with vaccinations mandates. Probably should gather in large groups. I don't think most people are eating the quality of food in restaurants that make it worth the risk, but I'm a food snob. I'm honestly just done with being worked up over this. Not done with Covid, just done with people.

[Snow mom]

So I finally read the policy thing from DESE and I take exception to how they present the statistics on in school spread/test and stay. Here’s what they say: “ Students and staff individually identified as asymptomatic close contacts and repeatedly tested in school through the Test and Stay program test negative over 90% of the time. As of January 9, 503,312 Test and Stay tests had been conducted; 496,440 of them were negative (98.6%)“. That 98.6% is misleading because they’re counting individual tests, not individuals tested as part of the program. The majority of people will test negative five times during test and stay but no one will test positive more than once. I’d bet this would be more than 6% of all individuals who took part in test and stay testing positive, which compared to our overall positivity rates in MA until the omicron surge is actually really unimpressive. And that’s 7000 in school cases caught through test and stay, which doesn’t seem insignificant. I guess I just don’t think now is the moment to get rid of safeguards. It’s funny how as things begin to improve the human mind is like “whew, glad that is over!” When if you look at the absolute numbers compared to any other time except the recent peak it’s super horrifying. Anyway, I’ve opted my kids into the at home testing after talking to a local friend. I’m still kind of miffed that they’re going to stop testing and contact tracing but alas I have no say in it.

[ged]

My son has been at school for 4 days and woke up with a fever and had an instant positive on a rapid test today. He has been nowhere but school due to all his risk factors!!

Mask wearing here is mandatory. It is strictly enforced at school. And surgical masks or higher required. There is no social distancing though.

The district just announced today that no more notifying of cases and no more contract tracing. They have too many cases to deal with. There is tons of school spread, but the district doesn’t want to admit it!

oh no - i'm so sorry. pretty much the same with my DD2. She's now on day 5 of Isolation - and STILL tested positive on the Rapid today. Thankfully her symptoms are better. But I am also 99.99% she got it from school - and I am so annoyed. I'm in a neighboring district from you.