Prior to the recent drop in cases, a sharp surge in the number of local COVID cases informed, in part, Unit 5's decision to not opt-in to offering a test-to-stay program, according to district superintendent Kristen Weikle.
Test-to-stay programs already were adopted in some districts before official guidance in December from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The updated recommendation came after federal health authorities studied the results of multiple schools that adopted such practices earlier this year, including several in suburban Lake County.
Instead of having students who have been exposed to COVID-19 undergo a 10-day quarantine by default, the new guidance said students who are masked at the time of exposure can take regular COVID tests and, as long as the results are negative, stay in class.
Unit 5 had been looking into adopting the protocols, even going as far as weighing the possibility of contracting workers whose sole job would be to help run the program.
But "the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) ... said if you don't currently have it implemented, we wouldn't recommend you start during the surge," Weikle said in a recent interview with WGLT. "That's because it's probably unrealistic that school districts could keep up. I would say that's certainly true: Our nurses and school staff are working extremely hard, but just being able to keep up with students and staff reporting symptoms and positives cases — that's pretty much consuming their entire day."
About 1,300 students and 350 staff members have signed up to participate in Unit 5's voluntary SHIELD Illinois' saliva-based testing program that's available within the district's school buildings. The district has around 13,000 students and 1,650 employees.
Ridgeview CUSD superintendent Erik Young said that while he knows his smaller, rural district has benefited immensely from adopting test-to-stay, "there's not a one-size-fits-all that I think works for everybody."
"We're kind of rural, so having access to being able to get a test — it helps our parents out to be able to bring their child to school and give them an opportunity to test to see whether they're positive or negative," he said. "I think that's the case for any district that's able to do that, but every district differs as far as what challenges they might be facing in regards to this."
Bloomington's District 87 also has adopted test-to-stay protocols; similar to Ridgeview, its smaller size allows the program be manageable in a way that Weikle said it would not be the case for the larger Unit 5 district.
"Overall, it's been very helpful to keep kids in school at a time when that's very difficult," said District 87 superintendent Barry Reilly.
Both District 87 and Ridgeview also share another commonality in that both use rapid antigen testing — BinaxNOW — provided by IDPH. Reilly said he has one concern about the program going forward: the availability of tests within the district's schools has started to dwindle.
"So far, we've been OK, but we're getting low in some of our buildings, and it's conceivable that we could run out," he said. "And if that were the case, then we simply can't do it in those places until we have the tests."
Reilly said he hopes that as cases continue to trend downward in McLean County, "my hope is that we'll continue to be able to do it."
