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Twin Valley Elementary in Wilmington was closed Friday out of “an abundance of caution” while a student is tested for the coronavirus, the district announced Thursday night.
Mater Christi School, a private Catholic school in Burlington, also announced Friday that it would suspend classes and move to remote learning effective at the end of the day.
“Research shows that closing schools proactively can slow down the spread of disease. MCS does not have an active case or known risk of exposure in its immediate school community,” school officials wrote in a posting to the Catholic preK-8 school’s website.
Officials at the Agency of Education said Twin Valley appears to be the only current public K-12 school closure in Vermont tied to the viral pandemic, but several superintendents are actively weighing shutting down as they await more information about suspected cases in their communities.
In Vermont’s largest school district, Burlington, Superintendent Yaw Obeng announced Friday that the schools were considering preemptively closing, despite there being no confirmed cases yet in the district. Administrators have been at work on contingency plans to feed children, switch to virtual learning, and find child care for the families of younger students in the event of closure.
“We will continue to advocate for preemptive action as soon as possible,” Obeng wrote in a letter home to families.
State officials have thus far refrained from advocating that schools close en masse, and Vermont has seen only a handful of temporary K-12 closures so far because of the coronavirus threat. Two people in the state have tested positive for the virus so far – one in Bennington, and the other in Chittenden County.
Williston schools were shut down Monday and Tuesday for cleaning after a teacher attended a conference in Boston where several attendees tested positive for the virus.
And schools across the Windham Southwest Supervisory Union – to which Twin Valley belongs – were closed on Monday and Tuesday as well. Administrators told families at the time that they wanted to take precautionary measures to clean the campuses after receiving word of “some level of exposure of students and families in our communities to individuals who are presumptive positive for COVID-19.” Schools reopened Wednesday.
On Thursday evening, WSSU Superintendent Barbara Komons-Montroll announced that the Twin Valley Elementary School would be closed again on Friday for cleaning and disinfection, but planned to reopen Monday. The results of a student’s test for COVID-19 would be released as soon as the district had them, she added.
“We want to assure you the district is taking this seriously and will continue to be in close contact with the Department of Health and Agency of Education,” she wrote in a message to families and the press.
Deciding to close school is a tough call for superintendents, especially for extended periods of time. Vermont’s preK-12 schools serve as de-facto child care for some 80,000 students, and are also a critical access point to nutrition for food insecure families. Successfully delivering instruction remotely is also unlikely for those districts located in rural communities that still lack basic access to high-speed internet.
Speaking to the House Education Committee on Friday morning, Secretary of Education Dan French said that officials were being asked why K-12 schools were largely staying open, even as Vermont colleges announce they are sending students home and pivoting to online instruction.
“That’s a great question. Largely, closing K-12 schools is much more disruptive than college,” he said.
But individual school districts across the country are closing down, and the outbreak has prompted several states, including Oregon, New Mexico, Kentucky and Michigan, to shut down all schools. Nationwide, at least 21,900 schools have been closed or are scheduled to close as of Friday, affecting at least 15 million students, according to Education Week, which is keeping a running tally of closures.