COVID-19 Cases In Schools Addressed By Milford Officials

Milford CT

09 December, 2021

7:03 PM

Description

Information via Milford Public Schools: December 9, 2021 Dear Members of the Milford Public Schools Community, I am writing to you today to address a news item that appeared yesterday in the local media regarding our district's reporting of positive COVID-19 cases in our schools. In the media stories, it was shared that we: 1-make limited efforts to inform the parent and staff communities in our schools of positive cases and 2-don't report cases to the state. It is my intent to bring greater clarity to these issues and to remind everyone of the process we follow here in Milford Public Schools (MPS). When a positive COVID-19 case is confirmed and communicated to us by the Milford Health Department, we prepare and send a notification letter directly to the entire school community of the affected individual. This daily practice has been in place since students and staff returned to in-person learning in September 2020 and goes directly to the families and staff members of the school involved. When a positive case is reported to us after 4:00 p.m., the notification letter is shared with the school community the next day. We believe our notification letter process best serves the purpose of informing impacted school families and staff, expeditiously and efficiently. In addition to the notification letter sent to families, please know that a robust investigation also takes place in conjunction with every confirmed positive case in the form of contact tracing. Hours of review are conducted with each and every case, identifying where the student/staff is located in the building/classroom, where the student sits on the bus (if applicable), the surrounding students' adherence to mitigation measures (mask wearing, hand washing practices, distancing) and more. When necessary, additional notification and directions are provided to individuals who have been identified as a close contact. Regarding our reporting of information on the state portal, earlier this week we learned that due to a clerical error on our part, MPS data had not been updated for several weeks. After being made aware of the issue, we immediately went to work to update the state portal and bring it up to current status. In order to ensure this information would appear with the next state portal update, (the portal refreshes every Thursday), I contacted Deputy State Epidemiologist Dr. Lynn Sosa of the Connecticut Department of Public Health. I am grateful for her assistance on this issue and am pleased to report that the state portal now reflects all COVID-19 cases through December 8, 2021. There are a few excellent resources available to anyone who would like to learn more about the incidence of COVID-19 in our state and our community. These are: Database: COVID-19 Tests, Cases, and Deaths (by Town) provided by the State of CT/HHS, updated daily Database: COVID-19 Cases in CT Schools provided by the State of CT/HHS, updated weekly (Thursdays) In closing, while we regret the confusion that emerged regarding the recent news coverage, please know we remain steadfast in our commitment to transparency with our school community on all issues. Thank you for your continued attention and support of our efforts. Sincerely,Anna M. Cutaia, Ed.D.Superintendent