School nurses always work “incredibly hard,” according to Bedford Superintendent of Schools Philip Conrad. But now, he described, the nurses are working “hair-on-fire.”
That was the powerful metaphor Conrad chose as he detailed to the School Committee Tuesday the challenges presented by surging cases of Covid-19.
The numbers help tell the story. Conrad said that from the start of school until the start of winter break, there were 111 Covid cases reported in the town’s four schoolhouses. From the beginning of the break until Jan. 6, there were close to 280, including some rapid tests.
“The challenge of keeping track of cases, communicating to families, [and] getting information into the database, has been overwhelming,” he continued. Laboratories are backed up and test results are delayed, so potential contacts can rise during the lag to as many as 100.
“Our nurses are so committed and so conscientious. If they could work 24 hours a day they would,” the superintendent asserted. “We want to make sure that when students come to the nurse’s office they feel welcome and cared for.”
Earlier this week, town Health and Human Services Director Heidi Porter said her department has mobilized to enhance support for school nurses, who “still continue to do initial outreach to every case.”
“The schools have been inundated with cases,” Porter told the Board of Health. “Nursing has been more difficult than they ever experienced in their entire lifetime. In response to that, we are shifting gears within the department.” A lot of this involves contract tracing, she said.
She reported on a meeting she attended with Conrad, Town Manager Sarah Stanton, and the lead school nurse, Tracey Fernald, last week “to talk about worst-case scenarios.” Friday’s snow day served as a “Covid day” for the nurses, she said. Conrad told the School Committee, “Heidi has been a huge help to us.”
Also this week, Stanton told the Select Board that there is a strong reciprocal relationship between Porter and the school nurses. “Phil and I are in constant contact with each other,” she said. “There’s no ego in this process – it’s all hands on deck. They’re all our kids.”
For the school nurses, “it’s going to be crisis mode for several weeks,” Porter said. “The messaging that goes out needs to be more detailed,” outlining the “what-ifs.” She endorsed Board of Health member Susan Schwartz’s suggested responses to different scenarios, such as verifying a positive diagnosis or a close contact.
School Committee member Brad Morrison asked about finding money to pay for more nursing support, but Julie Kirrane, the director of finance for the schools, said the problem isn’t funding but a labor shortage.
Also reporting to the Board of Health Monday were two public-health college students, Laura Nash and Leela Ramachandran, who were Bedford Health Department interns last summer and now are backing up the schools’ efforts, especially in the area of identifying close contacts.
Ramachandran shared some affirmative data: student vaccination rates. She said at Bedford High School, 4 percent of students have had a single shot of vaccine and 85 percent are fully vaccinated. The comparable numbers at John Glenn Middle School are 7 and 75 percent; for grades 7 and 8 they are 3 and 82 percent. In the elementary grades, she said, 7 percent of children have received one dose, and 73 percent are fully vaccinated,
Porter pointed out that, with the proliferation of home testing, by the time cases are recorded on the state database “it’s too late. School nurses are reacting to reports on home test results.” Member Maureen Richichi, a retired Lincoln school nurse, added, “They spend their day just trying to contact parents.”
Conrad told his committee that “we have concern about staffing levels.” He said the district has lost 42 teacher-days to illness, not including educational assistants and teaching assistants. The superintendent emphasized that staff members who are ill should remain at home. After a question from committee member Dan Brosgol, Conrad confirmed that some students have ended up in study halls because there was no teacher or substitute, though in most cases teachers are sending in lesson plans.
The school superintendent criticized the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for inertia. “We continue to wait for guidance from DESE—which has not happened.” There was no advance notice of a decision to extend the indoor mask mandate, and districts are waiting to learn “what kind of protocols to put in place in terms of pool testing and contact tracing that would meet what is actually happening on the ground,” he continued. “We need that guidance in order to make decisions about how we move forward for our nursing staff.”
He also referenced some masks supplied by DESE that turned out to be less than state-of-the-art, and credited Bedford Facilities Director Taissir Alani for coming up with 3,000 upgraded replacements.
Prakhar Gupta, a BHS senior who serves as the student representative to the School Committee, expressed dismay that “students who are staying home are falling behind.” Conrad replied that teachers are trying to communicate with absent students, and he noted that return to hybrid or remote instruction could not be counted as required school days, a decision that was made by state officials.
“If there isn’t a new variant and this spike goes down, then perhaps we can go back to testing and teaching, but it’s an open question, I think, at this point,” Conrad said. “What we continue to learn is that details matter. Every school is different, even Davis and Lane.”
“Last October, with all these cases, we would have shut down,” noted Brosgol. “I applaud you — and us – -for staying the course. I am just deeply saddened that we’re here, still.”
Mike Rosenberg can be reached at [email protected], or 781-983-1763
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