A Philly teacher had known exposure to a coronavirus patient. The district isn’t notifying parents.
A teacher at Randolph High had direct contact with someone who is now hospitalized with coronavirus. The district did not notify parents or send students home, but 200 kids walked out anyway. Union leaders are furious.
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A Philadelphia School District teacher gave the news this week: A relative had tested positive for the coronavirus, and he had been in close contact with the family member recently.
The Randolph High School teacher informed his students on Wednesday, then the principal sent the teacher home to isolate for two weeks.
Staff had questions, students had questions, but it seemed no one could provide answers.
Students panicked, some donning rubber gloves, many asking if school should be closed. Eventually, most of the students walked out.
But parents were never notified about the close contact the Randolph teacher had with the coronavirus patient, a daughter-in-law who had recently traveled in Japan and is now hospitalized locally. The district sent a cleaning crew to scrub the school Wednesday night, but has taken no further action, and the school was never closed.
Asked about the Randolph incident, district spokesperson Monica Lewis would not discuss specifics, but confirmed “that an employee was recently in contact with someone now known to have a confirmed case of COVID-19.”
She said she could not confirm where the incident happened, but said if the employee eventually tests positive for coronavirus, “communication would immediately be prepared and shared with any people who they may have been in contact with.”
Deep cleaning is underway at the school, Lewis said, “and we will continue to implement our enhanced cleaning process focusing on high-touch areas such as door knobs, desks and stairwells in all district schools.”
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No confirmed COVID-19 cases have yet been reported among district students or staff, she said.
Teachers, administrators, and union officials are growing increasingly concerned, however, saying district leaders give them scant information about how to handle and what to say about the global pandemic.
“The district does not have a plan,” said Robin Cooper, president of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, the district’s principals union. “For brown and black inner city kids, you say it’s OK for them to go to school, while you tell the teacher to go home and self-quarantine? Are our kids not worth the same precautions as suburban kids or our staff?”
CASA has not received acknowledgment that its questions were received, Cooper said.
That officials have canceled events scheduled for the district’s administrative headquarters on North Broad Street but haven’t closed Randolph for cleaning concerns people across the district, said Deana Ramsey, a district principal and CASA leader.
“Why aren’t we erring on the side of caution?” Ramsey said.
“All they said was, ‘We’re following the CDC,’” Ramsey added, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said he has been similarly frustrated.
“This is a major, major concern,” Jordan said. “The basic answers that people should be able to get, we’re just not getting. They just keep telling us that the health department is directing and answering all questions, but that doesn’t give my members any information about what it is they should do.”