Safest Place In East Haven? The Schools, Says Health Director

EAST HAVEN, CT — In a special meeting called by the East Haven board of education chairperson, who told Patch the sole reason she called the meeting was to provide information to parents and not to vote on closing schools after the holiday, the town's health director said there’s “not a safer place than our schools,” as he explained why unless the current case numbers double, he recommends schools remain open.

East Shore District Health director Michael A. Pascucilla said “schools are the safest place,” and urged parents and the community as a whole to “do your part,” and not hold New Year’s Eve gatherings.

“I can't stress this enough,” he said as he urged people to avoid get-togethers. “It is just not a good idea. Please rethink New Year's Eve," he said.

Pascucilla said that, "If we don't gather for New Year's Eve, we can prevent” the surge in case numbers that have been seen after Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

As a parent of two students doing in-person learning, he said: “We are doing what we need to do. Do your part. It's happening at home, in the community.”

Pascucilla said schools working with the health department have done a “good job” so far. But added that if case numbers double, “We’ll get very concerned.”

“The second it is not safe we’ll be making a recommendation to change,” the school’s learning model, he said.

But for now, schools will reopen following the holiday break for full in-person instruction next week.

And though she said the meeting was called for informational purposes only, East Haven school board chair Michele DeLucia’s Dec. 27 emails to board members, and the school superintendent Erica Forti, obtained by Patch shows she was exploring calling an emergency meeting to discuss the possibility of temporarily closing schools after the holiday break as a precaution given the spike in COVID-19 case numbers.

“What are your thoughts of calling an emergency meeting to discuss the possibility of going remote till at least the third week of January as a precautionary measure due to potential surge in cases. I think the sooner we decide the better, to give parents ample time to make plans,” one email reads.

During the Zoom board meeting Tuesday night, superintendent Forti said as long as the health department “data” shows schools can remain open, contact tracing remains effective (Pascucilla said the contact tracing protocol by the health department and schools is “stellar”), the district has the resources it needs, like PPE, and there’s adequate staff to do their jobs, the in-person learning model will remain. She said that if any of those four factors should change, the district and families need to be “prepared and ready if we need to pivot.”

As Patch reported Tuesday, around a third of all the positive schools cases are educators.

Last week Patch reported that 17 teachers held a private party where one was sick and tested positive for COVID-19 and the remaining 16 teachers were all sent into quarantine.

Pascucilla reiterated his disapproval of the party teachers held but called it a “learning opportunity.”

He also told Patch that as of Tuesday night, none of the 16 teachers has been reported to have tested positive for COVID-19.

“To date, none of the teachers have tested positive based on local/state data,” he said in an email.

As of Tuesday, there were 105 positive COVID-19 cases reported in East Haven schools since the beginning of the fall semester.