Clovis school district confirms ‘a small number’ of COVID-19 infections

As the Clovis community waits to hear when elementary schools might reopen, district officials on Monday confirmed “a small number” of COVID-19 infections, but didn’t say when those cases occurred.

Clovis Unified spokesperson Kelly Avants said she could not provide information on when the cases happened or whether it was students or faculty who tested positive.

In a statement to The Bee, she said, “we have had a small number of isolated cases related to individuals who tested positive requiring contact tracing. In each case we thoroughly followed all contact tracing and notification procedures.”

News of infections with links to Clovis schools came Monday following a community town hall meeting where Superintendent Eimear O’Farrell described, in general terms, the district’s success with contact tracing, which she said worked “beautifully.”

“I’ve witnessed us having somebody who contracted COVID, (and) was positive due to some sort of outside contact,” she said. “For us to have been able to move swiftly and because we have been very strict with our procedures and enforcing the mask-wearing and enforcing the six-foot distancing, we’ve really been able to mitigate disruption to other students and staff.”

O’Farrell did not elaborate during the meeting. Afterward, district officials said they could provide few details on the cases or numbers, citing medical privacy concerns, but confirmed multiple cases had occurred.

During the town hall meeting, O’Farrell described how small student cohorts had been learning on campus with public health department approval.

“We had our Campus Club program during the summer, and we’ve had students with special needs coming on campus, and those specialized services that we’ve provided for small cohorts.”

The district submitted a waiver on Oct. 2, asking the California Department of Public Health for permission to open elementary schools before all schools are allowed to open. That waiver is expected to be granted or rejected early this week, according to David Luchini, an assistant director with the Fresno County Department of Public Health.

The waiver is a 48-page plan detailing how Clovis Unified would conduct on-campus learning while mitigating the risk of spreading the coronavirus.

Also hanging in the balance is whether Fresno County will remain in the red tier under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “Blueprint for a Safer Economy” guidelines. If the county’s COVID-19 numbers continue to slow, as data from Monday shows, then all K-12 schools would be eligible to reopen with safety modifications, such as masks and social distancing.

The county’s status will be updated Tuesday, a critical day for all sectors of the economy hoping to resume normal operations.

Class during a pandemic

Many parents wrote in before the town hall meeting, concerned about the district’s proposed AM/PM schedule, in which students would go to school four days a week but for less than half a day.

The idea came from teachers, O’Farrell said.

“Our teachers felt that they needed to have contact with their students five days a week, as opposed to our students coming in-person two days a week, or being on their own, so to speak, for the other three days,” she said.

A survey has gone out to parents, she added, asking for further input. The district has posted its full reopening plan at cusd.com.

Many parents were concerned that their children could be made to stay home even if their symptoms are not COVID-19 related, O’Farrell said.

If a person has symptoms but gets a doctor’s note that the symptoms are due to seasonal allergies or other non-contagious illnesses, then the person may be able to return to school sooner, health officials said.

Dr. John Zweifler, with the health department, tried to clarify what would happen if students or faculty show COVID-19 symptoms.

If someone develops symptoms, they will be asked to isolate. Isolation is 10 days from when symptoms start and includes one day where the person is symptom-free. If someone tests positive but does not have any symptoms, isolation would last 10 days from the positive test, he said.

Quarantine is 14 days and is used when a person has been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.

“It’s a little bit counterintuitive because the quarantine period is actually longer than the than the isolation period,” Zweifler said, “but that is based on the fact that if you’re exposed to someone who has COVID, then that virus can take the 14 days to develop an infection within you. So, it’s meant to make sure that you are staying away from others during this entire period.”

Even if children are staying home, they won’t miss instruction, she said.

“Now we have so much technology available to us that students are obviously very intimately knowledgeable about, and we will be utilizing that technology moving forward. If a student needs to isolate or to quarantine, we will work with that family to make sure that the student is not losing out on opportunities to be connected to the classroom, utilizing Google classroom or even Zooming.”

This story was originally published October 12, 2020 at 6:31 PM.