Schools Use COVID Tests to Keep Students in Classroom

while they continue to test negative. Sabrina Sadiki white House, reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins us for how schools are finding ways to keep kids in classrooms. Thanks for joining us, Sabrina, thanks for having me. I want to talk about an interesting thing that's going on in schools when it comes to COVID right now. Obviously we've seen all the ups and downs and implementation of plans and how it's been a really rocky time for schools.

I think this is the third academic year that we've been kind of getting these COVID nineteen disruptions. But one of the things that's been coming up that a lot of places are having some success with is test to Stay. So basically, before if somebody was exposed to somebody that might have had COVID, everybody, all the students had to go home, they had a quarantine for a period of time.

All that now some schools are doing daily testing, maybe every other day, and if it's testing negative, you get to stay in school, and it's kind of easing up all the disruptions that are happening at least, So so bring it tell us a little bit more about this. As you point out, it's been really difficult for schools to grapple with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. A lot of schools across the country did not even fully

reopen until this fall, a couple of months ago. So many schools have actually been closed for a year and a half. And those schools that have opened, whether prior to this particular academic year or during, have still grappled with how do we test kids, how do we keep them safe? And we'll probably how do we avoid continued disruptions.

But so test this day is effectively, as you said, a way to shorten quarantine period for students who have not actually test too positive for coronavirus but simply been exposed to someone in the school who tested positive. And as you said, over the law, schools that earlier we're doing was abiding by these guidelines where students just had to quarantine for anywhere from seven to ten days simply

because they had been exposed. Whereas now this is giving students the option to stay in school if they've been exposed, so long as they test daily or regularly and test negative. And I think some teachers in school districts we've talked to just say it's prevented continued disruptions. You know, quarantines

have been really traumatic for parents, students, teachers alike. So it's giving kids a chance to stay in the classroom, which is so important, right, I mean, everybody agrees that having kids in the classroom is of the utmost importance with all of this. And as we mentioned before that, right, so if you were exposed, students were sent home, they can return after seven days if they tested negative on day five, or they had to do a full ten days if they weren't going to get tested at all.

So huge disruption on that front. And then you know, doing the remote learning just added complexities to all of that. And as you mentioned too, you know a lot of these schools were barely implementing new programs, so even something like Tests to Stay has been rolled out unevenly across school boards and school districts. It's interesting because you have sort of mixed views among school districts about what they want to see from the federal government in terms of guidance.

The CDC obviously does have guidance for schools, and so far they have not formally endorsed Tests to Stay. They've kept with the previous guidance you were talking about that if students are exposed they should quarantine for seven to ten days. They could test out sooner on day five. But you know, as they said that, you know, local school districts can make certain decisions of course on their own.

Now you have some people who say they wish the Test to Stay would be endorsed by the CDC because it would limit quarantined periods and also it would create a federal standard. But having said that, there are other schools that say, the school districts are dealing with very localized populations, different problems, different challenges, different sets of resources. Some of them can afford to do this testing daily

or regularly. School districts are really Hamstrong when it comes to resources, and they might not have the funding in place to be testing kids on a daily basis. So some people say they're actually happy that the federal governments stayed out their business and they'd rather do what works for them. But I think what you're finding is even a year and a happened to the pandemic, and as you point out, the third consecutive academic year, what we're

dealing with the backdrop of coronavirus. It's just been very uneven across the country, and a lot of school districts are just trying to essentially make it up as they go along. Now, we've seen a lot of push back and back and forth when it comes to parents and their views on what should be happening in the schools.

Have there been in your reaction to at least this, because obviously you can keep the kids in school longer, that's all great, but now you add this layer of now you have to test daily or every other day. Has there been any reaction or pushback from parents? You know? I thought that some parents were very supportive of it because their children were just so tired of staying home and the parents were struggling with having to have their kids at home because you know a lot of people

are also back work. Some of the flexibility that was their own a pandemic isn't there for everyone, and it's just disruptive. And now at the same time, when I talk to the school, there's one want to the school districts they are still dealing with, even with something like tests, to stay differing views around testing. You know, there's still a lot of parents who don't like any of these COVID protocols and don't want to have to test their kids. They may not want to test them at all, let

alone on the regular basis. And then it's also logistically complicated sometimes to receive a call at night saying, hey, your kid was a close contact. If you wanted to test the state, come in tomorrow morning at seven, you know, and have your kids tested and do that for the next five days or seven days on a daily basis.

That means parents have to adjust their work schedules, and you know there's a commuting factor putting your kid through a test every day, So you know, it's kind of mixed, I would say, but I do think more broadly, what you're hearing from the majority of parents is that they want their kids to be in school, and they want their kids to be learning in person, and they want to do that however is possible and as safely as possible.

I think the one question mark I would in now is there's not enough data, and this is why the CDC hasn't formally endorsed it. There's just not enough data yet to know if it tests to say is potentially causing more outbreaks at schools. So far, there hasn't been any definitive example where tests say has been linked to a major outbreak, but of course you know there is a potential for false negatives. They're using rapid tests for

this program primarily, so that's one question mark. And what we'll see down the road is if the data support that this is in fact as safe and effective as you know, the model that had been in place prior with the longer quarantine periods. There is a little bit of data though that suggests that it has saved school days so far this year for some students that would have otherwise been quarantined. I think out of Massachusetts we

got some numbers. Yes, So in Massachusetts, Tests to Stay has saved eighty five thousand school days this year for students who would have otherwise been in quarantine, according to the state's Department of Education, which put out a report. I think over there there are about schools that have signed up for testing programs which include tests. Say they're not all tests to stay, but you know, it also require some resources from the state to stand up that program.

So Governor Charlie Baker, who is a Republican, you know, he had to activate the National Guard to go in and help with COVID nineteen testing in K through twelve schools because there weren't enough staff members there to conduct those tests. So there's a resources question, I think for a lot of places whether or not they can stand up a program like Tests to Stay, But it is

without question saving school days. I mean, there was one parent I talked to for a nine year old in Marietta City Schools in Georgia, and she's in third grade, and she was a close contact and the prospect of being home for another ten days, up to ten days was really daunting for a kid who's already been home for a greater part of the school year during COVID.

So she was able to actually to test to stay and stay in class, and all those tests came out negative, and her father was saying, it's just important to get that social interaction right now and to also have consistency for kids who have actually suffered a great deal of learning loss. You know, there's a lot of studies showing the loss of learning over time because of COVID, and that's something that kids across the country are going to

be making up for months and years to come. Sabrina Sadiki White House reporter at the Wall Street Journal, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you so much. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't forget effort today's big news stories. You can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday to Friday. So follow us on my Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast