AUSTIN, Texas — Austin ISD students will return to their classrooms on Wednesday, Jan. 5. The district says it's prepared to welcome students back to in-person learning, even as the Austin area is experiencing a spike in COVID-19 cases.
KVUE's Jenni Lee spoke with AISD Superintendent Dr. Stephanie Elizalde about what the district is doing to make sure students and staff are as safe as possible.
Below is an abridged transcript of the interview.
Jenni Lee: On this day before school starts, Austin Public Health just announced that we're now over the threshold for Stage 5 of the COVID-19 risk-based guidelines. So, what is the district doing to make sure our students and staff are as safe as possible?
Dr. Stephanie Elizalde: "Well, thanks for asking that question. And I was fortunate to be able to be on my Monday meeting yesterday with Dr. Walkes, and she shared all that information, along with the support that we still know much more today than we did, say, March of 2020, when this whole thing really began. So, we're doing our early testing, as I'm sure you all know and I think reported. We have testing sites 11, 12 sites yesterday [Jan. 3]. We have those sites up and running again today [Jan. 4]. We'll continue to do testing throughout the entire week, and we've also included many of the protocols that are being recommended now. We did them in the fall, so things like air purifiers in every classroom, air scrubbers in large areas. So, we're going to be very cautious and we're also very confident that we can return to a safe environment, and we know that students need to be in class to get the best benefits of our schools."
Lee: Now I know the district is recommending that students return and when they return to wear the N95 mask or the KN95 mask or to double up the surgical masks. Will the district be providing the N95 or the KN95 masks?
Elizalde: "Well, certainly, as everybody knows, resources are very difficult to come by right now with regard to those. We do have sufficient N95, KN95 masks for all of our staff and, upon request, we absolutely will provide those to our staff. For our students, we do have the box surgical masks. If any of our parents are struggling with that, we've got those available. And as a reminder, though, in Austin ISD – and I get to visit schools about twice a week – and all of last year, during the first semester of this school year, I observed all of our students wearing double-layered masks. I would say greater than 90 to 95% of the time to begin with. So, we'll work with all of our parents and our staff to make sure we're doing the best we can with our masking."
Lee: I know that there are some parents who are concerned about their students returning to the classroom amid this surge of COVID-19 cases, the omicron variant being so contagious. What are you doing, or is the district offering any sort of virtual option for these parents?
Elizalde: "No, we won't be offering that virtual option. That concluded at the end of the first semester, and we've worked very hard to transition our students and our staff. And I have to weigh the benefits along with the drawbacks of each of these decisions and, as everyone knows, what is definitely true is there is no one answer. There's no right answer. And I've got to really look at the benefits of our students being in class as well as the impact on staff. We just moved our teachers who had been teaching virtually, transitioning them back to an assigned campus with students who will be reporting in person. And to put that, at this time, doing a change to that would create greater disruption than if we stay the course.
Now that being said, Jenni, as the data come in, if we need to make adjustments, we absolutely will. But right now, we're going to continue to be cautious and confident as we have been during the first semester, and we're going to have our classrooms ready for our kiddos."
Lee: You mentioned, AISD is offering COVID testing, it's ongoing all week long. That's available at different locations. Now we know about 1,200 people tested yesterday. We're hearing about a third of those results were positive. Is that correct? Do you have the latest stats?
Elizalde: "That is not in alignment with the numbers that were reported to me earlier this morning, but the numbers have not been scrubbed. Our focus has not been on just collecting the data. Our focus has been on actually doing the tests and making sure those, each individuals, know what their test results are so that we can make sure that we isolate the appropriate amount of time.
So, currently, the numbers that I had received was that we had roughly about 10%* were coming back positive. But again, I would not stand by those numbers right this minute. We're going to be meeting this afternoon. We will post the information, though, Jenni. We do want all our parents to know at each of the schools how many positives we know about.
And I would like to just remind everybody that prior to the first day of school back in August – I know it seems like a long time ago – but back then, we had 100 positive cases [on] August the 16th. And that was with just a few hundred that we tested in August before the first day of school. So, right now, it seems to me like, like we're, we're running a little higher than that. But at the same time, that's the whole point is we want to identify where those positives are so that we can keep mitigating the spread of this variant."
*AISD later released back-to-school testing from Monday and Tuesday and said it yielded a 14.5% overall positivity rate.
Lee: Let me ask you: 120 cases out of the 1,200 yesterday – what's your reaction to that?
Elizalde: "Actually, my reaction is that I'm glad we know about them so that we can ensure that those individuals do not present themselves in a place where we can spread that. There's so much new information, there's now data that suggests schools have never been a superspreader of the virus and, in fact, because we do require so many protocols that we may actually be helping the situation because we develop the habits that we do know work. So, we're going to continue to monitor and if I need to make adjustments, if cases are very high in a particular classroom or a particular school, as we have in the past, we will always make sure that safety comes first. And we're also going to keep our classrooms open for our students unless some data tells us differently."
Lee: Can you also explain what the procedure is once someone tests positive? What's next?
Elizalde: "Well, fortunately for Austin ISD, we were already piloting what has now been called 'test to stay.' So, we've been utilizing tests to do two things. One, to make sure that we identify who is actually positive and possibly contagious to others so that we can isolate. But we also use the 'test to stay' because as we all have heard recently, the new data says that we may not need to be isolating for as long a period of time as necessary. So, the 'test to stay' allows us to get a negative test of students so that they can return quickly if they've had to isolate at all. This will also help us with staffing so that we won't have that type of staffing challenges that other industries have had up to date."
Lee: Are there concerns about staffing shortages because of positive cases?
Elizalde: "Well, at this point, without knowing how many positive cases we have of our staff just yet – we won't know that until this afternoon – we are developing a contingency plan. It could be likely that I might be in a classroom at a high school nearby myself tomorrow. We will utilize all of our staff to make sure that our parents can feel confident that their students are going to have the instruction and the supervision that they need. So, I do think it's a necessary reality that we recognize. We probably will have staffing challenges just like the airlines and hospitals and every other industry. And we also have staff prepared to step in because we know substitutes have been difficult to come by as well.
Lee: Was there anything else I forgot to ask you that our viewers, our parents, our teachers need to know about right now?
Elizalde: "I think I just want to thank our community for continuing to be so vigilant and helpful and pushing and asking and recognizing that there are no easy answers, there's no right answer. Together, we will work to ensure that our schools are providing the services that we now know are even more vital than we thought, even before. Many of our students suffered when we did not have our classrooms open. And so, while every parent needs to make the decision that is best for their family each and every day, we're going to continue to make sure that our classrooms are open for our children."
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