Mahomet-Seymour to end on-site COVID-19 testing

Over the last 48 hours, Mahomet-Seymour community members have questioned the outcome of a vote that eliminates on-site testing within the district’s four schools.

The 30-minute discussion ended in a 4-3 vote (Meghan Hennesy, Jeremy Henrichs, Ken Keefe, and Colleen Schultz) nodding that students would need to receive COVID-19 tests at another facility while the district focuses on educating students. 

With little discussion prior to the vote, the Mahomet Daily reached out to Henrichs, Keefe, Hennesy, and Schultz via email. Henrichs was the only board member to not reply as of Thursday afternoon. 

Henrichs, who made the motion, said that the district would continue to work with the Champaign-Urbana Public Health Department, as required by law, for contact tracing. 

Board member Sunny McMurry said that getting her children to another testing site would be difficult, and might be difficult for other parents. 

Board member Max McComb said that the test-to-stay option has kept kids in school and kept activities going when they have been exposed to the virus. 

Per test-to-stay requirements, close contacts (an individual not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 who was within 6 feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period) must be tested on days 1, 3, 5, and 7 after exposure. As long as close contacts remain negative, they have not been required to quarantine.

The guidance says that individuals who are fully vaccinated or who tested positive for COVID-19 within the prior 90 days and are currently asymptomatic are not considered close contacts.

During the board meeting prior to the vote, Superintendent Lindsey Hall told the board that test-to-stay would continue to be an option if testing was not done on campus, but that students would have to go elsewhere to get the test.  

The following morning, Hall sent out an email to parents, notifying them that Oct. 19 guidance by the state states: “Testing must be conducted in school and, preferably, should be performed at the start of the school day before entering the classroom.”

Schultz said she is still trying to understand the specifics of guidance and implementation.

“I am unclear on this new information and need to do additional research as it contradicts what is being done in other local school districts,” she said. “For example, according to the plan posted on their website, Champaign permits ‘outside testing’ for its ‘test to stay’ program.  While in a different county, Gibson City also uses ‘test to stay’ and they do not have onsite testing.  Apparently, the IDPH rule requiring on-site testing for the ‘test to stay’ program is being applied capriciously—that is not something anyone, including our superintendent, could have predicted ahead of time.”

Board member Justin Lamb, who said that at some point on-site testing will have to end, said that at this point, where younger children ages 5-11 are just getting registered for their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, on-campus COVID-19 testing is helpful for parents who want to do so.

Roughly 28 million children ages 5 to 11 are now eligible to receive Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. Registration through CUPHD filled up quickly early this week. More information can be found at https://www.c-uphd.org/champaign-urbana-illinois-coronavirus-information.html.

The Mahomet-Seymour School District has used Abbott’s BinaxNOW COVID-19 Ag Card

Tests since Jan. 11. Also approved for at-home use by the US Food and Drug Administration, BinaxNOW tests, which are antigen tests, are not as sensitive as molecular PCR tests, like the University of Illinois SHIELD tests, which were made available to school districts throughout the state at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year. 

According to the CDC, “Sensitivity (the ability of the test to identify people with antibodies to SARS-CoV-2) of the BinaxNOW antigen test, compared with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, was lower when used to test specimens from asymptomatic (35.8%) than from symptomatic (64.2%) persons, but specificity (the ability of the test to correctly identify people without antibodies to SARS-CoV-2) was high. Sensitivity was higher for culture-positive specimens (92.6% and 78.6% for those from symptomatic and asymptomatic persons, respectively); however, some antigen test-negative specimens had culturable virus.”

Despite evidence that antigen tests are not as accurate in detecting COVID-19, the district felt the 15-minute result, as opposed to the 24-hour window with the SHIELD test, made it a great first line of defense.

Superintendent Lindsey Hall said that three classrooms in the last two-and-a-half months have been identified as having outbreaks. She noted that last year those classrooms, and maybe the entire school, would have been shut down, but because of test-to-stay, students were able to remain at school.

While analyzing the COVID-19 dashboard data, Schultz saw something different. In the same time period in 2020, the beginning of the school year to Nov. 3, the Mahomet-Seymour School District reported 15 positive cases and 194 exposures while in 2021 the district has reported 167 positive cases and 974 exposures (Nov. 4). 

Currently (Nov. 4) the zip code 61853 accounts for 15-percent of COVID-positive cases, with Mahomet-Seymour accounting for 8-percent of the total cases of the 25 regions in Champaign County. 

CUPHD also reports that 81.3-percent (as of 11.4.2021) of individuals over the age of 12 in zip code 61853 have received at least one dose of the vaccine, one of the highest rates in the county. Teachers are also required by the State to be vaccinated against COVID or to test weekly. 

Although Schultz has repeatedly asked for data from the school, the dashboard is all she’s had to work with. 

“In the end, as I do with every vote I make,  I made the best decision I could with the information and data I had,” Schultz said. “I wish I had more complete data to have a better understanding of what’s happening in our district with regards to COVID, but despite my repeated requests to be provided that data, it has consistently been denied to me. 

“I understand that some will disagree with me and some will interpret the data differently than I do.  Without full information, that is inevitable. The fact remains, however, that my decision is based on my understanding and best faith effort of what is in the best interests of our students.”

Schultz agrees with Henrichs, that a school district’s mission is to educate students while the public health department’s mission is to mitigate and trace public health concerns.

“The transition away will always be difficult, but we have an organization whose job is to handle these public health issues and we need to allow them to do their work while we do ours,” she said. “Our primary focus needs to return to educating children. 

“That being said, part of supporting the highest level of student learning is to value a safe learning environment.  In valuing a safe learning environment, my objective is to keep healthy kids in school, have sick kids stay home until they are healthy, and to help healthy kids not get sick in school.

“I have gathered the data available to me to analyze what’s happening in our district.  I have gathered information from outside of our district.  When considering all the information and data I have, balancing costs and benefits, I do not believe that continuing testing in school is the best choice to achieve that objective.”

Keefe and Schultz both said that they intended to keep the test-to-stay option viable, and with the information that they had at the time of the vote, they believed it would remain. 

“Had that information been shared with the board, I believe we would have worked out some compromise to accommodate the issue. I expect that we will address it when we next meet,” Keefe said. 

For Keefe, though, his decision to vote “yes” came with the hesitation that the system in place is working to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

“I believe that there have been some serious problems with the district’s testing and contact tracing that makes it necessary to give those responsibilities back to public health and medical providers,” he said. “Unfortunately, the details cannot be discussed publicly. This was my primary motivation for voting how I did.”

Hennesy has heard similar reports.

“As we started the school year, I was worried about the district’s inability to layer proper mitigations like spacing, masking, and contact tracing,” Hennesy said. “Test-to-stay is a program that, when implemented correctly and in line with other mitigations, is a tool we can utilize to keep kids healthy and in school and I am in support of that happening. 

“As this year has progressed, I have heard reports from staff, students, and parents about anomalies with our execution of test to stay.  Reports from staff about kids who are symptomatic being sent to the office because they are deemed ill by teachers (with symptoms; headaches, stomach aches, coughing, wheezing, stomach aches, vomiting, falling asleep on desks, confusion, etc.) who are tested for COVID, and when the test is negative, the child is sent back to class to finish the day.  

“When I have asked the Superintendent for an explanation of these incidents, I have not received answers, even when I’ve asked again.  I have no reason to believe that the concerns brought to me from students, parents and staff are not accurate, and then when I ask for clarification and don’t receive it, that is the only information I have to base decisions on.

“As I have watched the covid numbers in our schools go up and the number of outbreaks in classrooms increase it is my opinion that not following our policies on sickness are a possible cause. Last year we had a very low number of illnesses – I believe it is because the community was vigilant about keeping kids with symptoms home.  

“So much of the communication I have received indicates that the way we are using test-to-stay is to take kids with symptoms, test them for COVID and if it is negative, they go back to class. I have received emails indicating that parents have written in support of test to stay by saying ‘my child was feeling sick and was able to test at the school and because they were negative, they didn’t miss school that day.’

“This causes me great concern,” Hennesy said. “If we are to keep the kids and community safe, we must follow the policies we put in place.  Our policy on illness, even before COVID and the test-to-stay option is to send sick kids home. It is these anomalies and reports and the lack of other information with respect to the spread of covid that led me to vote to send testing and contact tracing to the experts in those fields.”

“I believe the policy is sound, but our implementation of the policy is flawed and thus cannot change my vote.”

Hall said that eliminating the on-site testing could influence insurance rates moving forward. Since the beginning of the school year, the district has performed 5,407 tests, of which 115 have come back positive. 

On-site testing is scheduled to end on Nov. 12 per an email Hall sent to parents. Hall said that CUPHD will take over testing, contact tracing, and contacting parents. Students will need a negative COVID-19 test before returning to school.

The district will also host a COVID-19 vaccine clinic for students ages 5-11 in Lincoln Trail Elementary on Nov. 17 with a follow-up clinic on Dec. 8 from 3 to 7 p.m.