Published January 27, 2021

By DAN TOMASELLO

LYNNFIELD —The School Department is looking to increase in-person learning next month.

With COVID-19 cases trending down in town, Superintendent Kristen Vogel told the School Committee during a Jan. 19 meeting that the long-discussed proposal of having the district’s Blue and Gold cohorts come into school on alternating Wednesday mornings will begin at some point in February.

While Vogel was hopeful the town would be classified as “yellow” last week, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health designated Lynnfield as a “red” community once again on Thursday, Jan. 21. According to the Emergency Management Team, there are currently 92 active cases of the novel coronavirus in town as of Tuesday, Jan. 26. There have been 886 total cases since the start of the pandemic and 767 people have recovered from the virus. There are currently 14 members of the school community who have tested positive for COVID-19. Tragically, the town has lost 27 residents to the virus.

“We have not officially determined the date for moving to alternating Wednesdays as the town is still ‘red,’” Vogel stated in an email sent to the Villager. “We will announce the date and what it will look like at each grade level once the town is ‘yellow.’ We are hopeful that the town will be ‘yellow’ this week.”

School Committee Chairman Jamie Hayman thanked residents for reducing the number of COVID-19 cases in town.

“That doesn’t happen if everyone is not doing their part,” said Hayman.

Vogel agreed.

“I want to thank our families and the entire community for their diligence with following all of the safety protocols such as staying home, avoiding large gatherings, wearing masks and social distancing,” said Vogel. “We have noticed a significant improvement over the last couple of weeks.”

Once the town is classified as a “yellow” community, Vogel said the Blue and Gold cohorts will be able to come into school on alternating Wednesday mornings.

“We are really excited about it,” said Vogel. “The leadership team has been working with our teachers in order to make this happen. We are so happy that our kids are going to be coming into school more starting next month.”

Vogel said teachers will still be using Wednesday afternoons to plan lessons. She said the DPW will continue cleaning the schools after educators leave for the day on Wednesday afternoons.

School Committee member Tim Doyle inquired if the Wednesday morning plan will need to be delayed if COVID-19 cases spike again.

“We would have to hit the pause button,” said Vogel.

In response to a question from School Committee member Phil McQueen, Vogel said the Lynnfield Teachers Association has agreed to the alternating Wednesday plan.

“One Wednesday morning will be the Blue Cohort and the next Wednesday morning will be the Gold Cohort,” said Vogel.

Hayman hopes the alternating Wednesday plan will go into effect sooner rather than later.

“It will be dependent on the public health metrics,” said Hayman. “This will be another change for teachers and I want to thank them for agreeing to this. Getting kids into school more is so important to this committee. Even if it is alternating Wednesdays, it is a step in the right direction.”

Vogel also said school officials are hopeful the COVID-19 vaccine will begin being administered to educators in February.

“We have a survey and a fact sheet that we will be sending out to our teachers so we can gather all of the information that we need to be fully prepared for when the vaccine is available,” said Vogel. “We have a distribution site and a distribution plan. We just need to get the information and data from our teachers so that when the vaccine is available, we can get going.”

After educators are vaccinated against COVID-19, Vogel said school officials and the LTA will be discussing ways to increase in-person learning.

“That makes us very hopeful,” said Vogel.

Pool testing nixed

Vogel recalled that Gov. Charlie Baker recently announced that weekly COVID-19 pool testing is now available to school districts. She said school officials participated in a webinar about pool testing in order to learn how it works.

“Pool testing is a screening tool,” said Vogel. “How it works is between 10 and 25 samples would be collected within a school building. We would go to classrooms and collect the samples from students and staff that would go into a pool. It would then be sent out to a lab where that pool of samples would be tested with one PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test. The state rolled this out as a mitigation strategy. The governor and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education did not roll out pool testing as a way to replace the other guidelines and it is not intended to bring all of our children back to school.”

If a pool tests positive for COVID-19, Vogel said the students and staff whose samples were collected will be required to quarantine for two weeks.

“That includes family members,” said Vogel. “Everyone would be required to stay out of school until every person returned a negative test. The impact of this would be that more individuals would be out of school than the current process that we have, which we feel is working very well.”

Vogel also noted that the state does not pay for the program.

“The testing swabs are free for six weeks,” said Vogel. “Districts across the commonwealth would have to pay a company to carry out the testing. We would have to hire a company to come into the schools to collect our samples, process the samples and do the follow-up testing as well.”

Vogel said local officials decided not to implement the pool testing program because students and staff would be out of school more than they are currently.

“We don’t see much of an educational benefit to it,” said Vogel. “What we learned from the other districts doing pool testing is there was no difference from what they were discovering from pool testing than what is discoverable through public health data. We don’t see there is much of a gain for health and safety, and we feel very strongly that the protocols we have in place are working very well and are keeping everyone in the community safe.”