West Marin’s schools were slammed with Covid cases after returning from winter break, and changing guidance has confused parents and staff. School officials say the kids who test positive are largely being exposed outside of school, but pinpointing exposures has become next to impossible because of the widespread prevalence of the Omicron variant.
On Jan. 14, the county issued a blanket exposure notification to Marin’s entire school community, instructing administrators, teachers, parents and students, to assume they are facing “ongoing exposure.”
Since students returned to school this month, 48 students and staff members have tested positive at Tomales High School, 28 at Tomales Elementary, 20 at West Marin School and two at Inverness School. For two days earlier this month, attendance at the high school was at about 50 percent because of cases and exposures.
“People are tired, not just physically, but emotionally,” said Adam Jennings, superintendent of Shoreline Unified School District. Staffing issues in the last two weeks have been especially taxing, he said, with almost a third of staff out some days last week.
Teachers and administrators have been taking on additional roles, and the district has been calling in as many substitutes as possible. The district has even enlisted a qualified parent to help support teachers. “It’s just: ‘Come in, we’ll find more work for you to do,’” Mr. Jennings said.
Omicron has caused case counts that dwarf any previous surge in Marin, with an estimated 15,000 active infections last week. Yet cases are already past their peak, and the county’s public health officer, Dr. Matt Willis, said just 15 residents were hospitalized because of the virus. Since most cases have been mild amid the surge, health officials have shifted their focus to help minimize disturbances to the workforce and essential services.
“We need to make sure that our policies that are designed to prevent infections don’t paradoxically harm other essential services,” Dr. Willis said at a school community update last week.
The state and county have eased some requirements to end isolation, including for health care workers, because of staffing shortages and the scarcity of tests. Last week saw new guidance for schools from the county’s public health officials. Urging everyone in the school community to consider themselves exposed, the county changed its guidance on sending notifications.
“Parents and schools are sending out exposure notices, and you’re getting exposure notices all week,” deputy public health officer Dr. Lisa Santora said at last week’s school update. “We’re no longer recommending that you send exposure notices for positive cases in the classroom.”
As of last week, asymptomatic students 12 and over with two doses but no booster can attend school even if exposed, while monitoring for symptoms. Unvaccinated students still need to quarantine if exposed, but since many of the unvaccinated have been infected in recent weeks, the county said students who have had a recent infection no longer have to quarantine. Eighty-seven percent of Marin kids over 12 are fully vaccinated, while 62 percent of 5- to 11-year-olds have received both doses. Booster numbers are lower: only a little over half of all eligible Marin residents 12 and up have received one.
Students who test positive must isolate for five days with a negative test, or 10 days if continuing to test positive, regardless of whether they are vaccinated. At Shoreline Unified, high school and middle school students well enough to work can check in on Google Classroom, while elementary schoolers check in with their teachers in the morning.
Access to testing has been a challenge nationwide, but West Marin’s schools have secure supplies of rapid tests. In October, Shoreline received a shipment of almost 2,000 Binax rapid antigen tests that it continues to distribute to students and family members, even dropping off tests at their homes.
Glenda Mejia, the family advocate at West Marin School, said she has become the public health liaison for Spanish-speaking families in the district, especially as guidance has changed rapidly. She has been spread thin since many staff, including principal Beth Nolan, were out sick the first week back.
“Nights and mornings, I’ve been on the phone with parents making sure that they understand if their kid can go back to school,” Ms. Mejia said. “I’m always very patient. If it’s confusing to me, imagine how confusing it is if you don’t speak the language and you’re hearing different things every day.”
At Lagunitas School, 11 students and five employees tested positive this month. Anita Collison, the teachers’ union president, said the district has honored all of teachers’ requests amid the surge, including a supply of N95 masks and an adequate supply of rapid tests.
But Ms. Collison, who teaches fourth, fifth and sixth grades in the school’s Open Classroom program, voiced concerns about the guidelines from higher up, which she said don’t seem to prioritize safety first.
“I think the county office is proud of their work keeping students in schools, but I’m mixed about it,” Ms. Collison said. “I can see that students and families are very happy to be back in school, and I wouldn’t say that we should go back to distanced learning, but to me it’s like: ‘Why are we loosening up now, when cases are higher than they’ve ever been?’”
She added, “For the staff, our concern is not only for our students but for our own families. We don’t want to be bringing this home to them.”
At Bolinas-Stinson School, seven students have tested positive, and two students at the one-room Laguna Elementary tested positive. Similarly small Lincoln Union Elementary has seen no positive cases, and Nicasio School principal Barbara Snekkevik said the school is too small to report case numbers without violating privacy.