Vermont schools should prepare to halt COVID-19 contact tracing and PCR surveillance testing ahead of a major policy shift next week, the state’s top education official said Friday.
In an email sent to local school officials Friday evening and obtained by VTDigger, Secretary of Education Dan French outlined the broad strokes of an “imminent policy shift” that will change how schools handle COVID-19 cases in the state’s schools.
The changes mark a significant policy shift for the state agency, one that state officials hope will ease local educators’ heavy workloads.
“A primary contributing factor to this policy change is the rapid spread of the omicron variant,” French wrote. “Many of the strategies that previously were effective for us will cease to be useful (if they haven’t already) and will instead become a drain on scarce resources without a clear public health benefit.”
Under previous recommendations, school staff were advised to create a list — called a “line list” — of all close contacts after every positive case in school.
But that labor-intensive process often burned up hours of staff time, a resource in short supply amid school staffing challenges across the state.
Under the state’s new guidance, school staff are advised to no longer contact-trace after a positive coronavirus case during school. Schools also should halt PCR surveillance testing, a regimen in which larger groups of students are tested with slower — but more accurate — tests on a regular basis, French said.
Instead, schools should pursue a “more rapid response option.”
In the case a student or staff member tests positive for COVID-19, schools would inform only those parents whose children share a class with the COVID-positive person.
The families of unvaccinated classmates would be advised to pick up rapid COVID-19 tests at the school and conduct five days of daily testing at home. Unvaccinated staff members identified as contacts would follow the same procedures.
The new guidance also appears to effectively shift the burden of testing from school staff to family members of students.
In most Vermont districts, school employees are equipped to conduct “test-to-stay,” a regimen in which close contacts of positive cases take daily rapid tests before the beginning of class.
Under the forthcoming guidance, that task also would fall to parents.
The new guidelines come on the heels of a week that saw record-breaking COVID-19 cases and a wave of school closures.
French teased that shift in a news conference prior to last week’s holiday break but offered few details about the process.
Friday’s letter, which was first reported by Seven Days, also leaves much unanswered. For one thing, state officials may struggle to gather COVID-19 case data from tests administered in private homes.
There is also an open question of how — or if — schools plan to ensure compliance with the new guidelines.
“We understand that this summary will not answer all of your questions, but hope that having this outline in advance will be helpful to you,” French wrote in the letter, noting that new details would be forthcoming Monday.
The transition, French wrote, is “based on sound science” and has “the support of Vermont’s infectious disease experts and pediatricians.”