The Watertown Public Schools were closed on what was to be the second day back from winter vacation so that COVID-19 tests can processed and those testing positive can be notified.
On Monday, Jan. 3, students and staff were tested on the first day after the break. Originally, Tuesday was going to be an early-release day, but Superintendent Dede Galdston announced that schools would be closed so that people who tested positive can be notified.
The Superintendent sent out the following announcement:
Good morning,
As we process our pool testing, we have made the decision to close schools for today, Tuesday, January 4. We will contact families that are in positive pools throughout the day for reflex testing and send out a communication later with more information. Our school and district offices will be open for phone calls only.
Thank you for your understanding,
Dede Galdston
Kudos WPS and school committee! Way to keep the kids out of school unnecessarily once again.
Kudos indeed! The following numbers were released by the School Department tonight. While your at it, try to keep in mind that many cities don’t even pool test never mind individually test (which the school department does not have adequate time and/or staff to administer even if they had that many tests which is questionable.)
Below are some data points to better understand the situation in the Watertown Public Schools released today by the superintendent of schools.
– 116 presumptive positive or inconclusive pools (32 at WHS, 26 at WMS, 12 at Lowell, 22 at Hosmer, 9 at Cunniff, 1 at Early Steps, and 11 at Lowell West)
– This is 10x more than our worst week. For reference, prior to this week, the most positive pools we’ve experienced in WPS were 10 pools.
– These pools require up to 1000 reflex tests as there are up to 10 samples per pool, all needing to be accomplished by our nursing staff and their support staff.
– Additionally, yesterday 140 individuals came to our symptomatic testing program, yielding 36 positive cases.
These healthy kids stay home to stare at the wall for a couple days then they go back to school. Other than giving a child a time out what do you think you are accomplishing?
Can someone explain why there are 11 positive pools at Lowell West? Currently, there are no students there.
I have been wondering all day why the schools wasted time doing pooled testing. Why didn’t they take the time to test each student individually yesterday instead? Of course most the pools came back positive! Have you seen the spike in Covid numbers across the country? I would have loved to have seen the look of confusion on the administration’s face as the results rolled in today. Once again, they created a big mess today that could have been avoided.
These tests are useless and money wasters. A kid can be tested today and a day or two later develop the virus. Let the children go back to school and use all the precautions you can. There are so many stories of the mental health issues created by isolating them and they are not learning what they need to know, one of them being that life has challenges and we all have to learn to live with them and deal with them. On Channel 4 yesterday a doctor from Children’s Hospital was interviewed and he said the kids who are landing in the hospital are ones who have gone to the hospital with other medical issues and there it is discovered they have asymptomatic covid. Other reports say that many of these children getting serious cases of the virus are obese. These are the issues we should be addressing, and we shouldn’t let the teachers’ unions rule the conditions. We should be concerned about the children, not the teachers. This new variant is proving to be not as bad as others. Let’s stop the fear tactics.
So the town cancelled the public inauguration, town manager postpones retirement party…remind me again about how the teacher’s union is driving these decisions across the town?
Dear Anon, I don’t understand your comment at all. The teacher’s union has nothing to do with these decisions. The Town Manager with input from the Health Dept. and other Town Administrators make these decisions. Do you have an axe to grind with the teacher’s union?