'As Normal As Possible': Fairfield's Back-To-School Plan

FAIRFIELD, CT — Coronavirus prevention measures will remain a part of daily life in the classroom when Fairfield schools reopen later this month, officials said Tuesday.

“All of us would like to get things to get back to normal, would like to lose the masks, would like to get back to the way things were, but unfortunately we’re just not there yet,” Health Department Director Sands Cleary said during a YouTube webinar on health guidance for the coming school year.

Cleary, Superintendent Mike Cummings and other local health officials answered questions about how the school district would work to minimize the impact of the pandemic while limiting disruptions to the learning process. Students are set to return to school Aug. 30 full-time and in-person.

A state executive order requiring universal masking in schools is in effect until Sept. 30, Cleary said, although he noted Gov. Ned Lamont has discussed possibly changing the rule in the coming weeks. Masks will not be mandated during lunch, recess or outdoor learning opportunities.

Fairfield schools will require 3 feet of social distancing between students at all times and protocols will be followed, such as wiping down desks on a daily basis, although Cummings clarified the district may pull back on its approach to cleaning. Dr. Bruce McDonald, who joined Cleary, Cummings and Assistant Director of Health Jill Mitchell for the webinar, remarked that surface transmission of the coronavirus is minimal.

“It’s just additional work that’s not needed,” he said of the extra cleaning.

The district will release information about cases as they occur and will contact trace infections in the school system. Quarantines will be shorter than they were in the previous academic year, and will last seven days with a coronavirus test on the fifth day. Masked students who keep a distance of more than 3 feet from a person who tests positive will not need to quarantine.

“We’ll always look to take the least restrictive measures that we can while still protecting the public’s health,” Cleary said.

Long-term remote learning will not be offered in the coming school year, Cummings said, but the Board of Education will develop a short-term, at-home learning policy for students in quarantine.

The district hopes to make the new school year “as normal as possible,” Cleary said, but the highly transmissible delta variant has made that goal more challenging. The coronavirus is trending upward in Fairfield, which saw 87 cases last month, compared to 52 cases in July 2020, according to Cleary. Of the 87 recent cases, about 20 were breakthrough infections of vaccinated people.

While 64 percent of Fairfielders are fully vaccinated, only 58 percent of residents ages 12 to 15 have received the vaccine, Cleary said, noting Connecticut has recorded a total of 64,000 coronavirus cases in people ages zero to 19.

“There’s still more progress to be made, especially with some of the younger ages,” he said. “If we limit this transmission, we’re also limiting time out of the classroom.”

When asked what developments could lead the district to switch to a hybrid or remote learning model, Cummings didn’t have an answer.

“These aren’t things that any of us want to consider and honestly, at this point, we don’t know,” he said.