Montgomery County announced a new approach to student quarantine measures Monday, saying the changes will help keep students in school after thousands have been sent home this fall for exposure to the coronavirus.
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Starting next week, unvaccinated students who opted into a weekly screening program can stay in school despite close contact with an infected student, so long as proper masking is in place. Such students cannot participate in certain activities, however, including high-contact sports, and are expected to quarantine outside of school.
In another change, Montgomery County students who are exposed to the virus when masks are off — during lunch, for instance — will be allowed to return to school after seven days if they have a negative test on or after the fifth day. Quarantines are otherwise 10 days.
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“We strongly believe that these new guidelines .？.？. will have a significant impact on the number of students required to quarantine,” interim superintendent Monifa McKnight said. “As always, our top priority is to have our students safely in school to the greatest degree possible.”
The changes come three days after Maryland education officials eased recommendations about quarantines, laying out more relaxed practices that school districts could adopt.
Quarantines have been a flash point in Maryland’s largest county, with its school system of nearly 160,000 students. Some parents have complained that children are kept out of school unnecessarily, with entire classes sometimes quarantined and protocols they call overly strict.
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Previously, the school system said it would begin a “test to stay” program to allow students exposed to the virus at school to do regular rapid testing rather than quarantine. Critics say that effort has been too slow to start. McKnight said Monday that the program will begin gradually this week and expand over time.
Some schools around the country skip student quarantines
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich (D) appeared with school leaders as they announced the changes and, highlighting the importance of in-person school, pointed to pandemic declines in student progress.
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Recent data shows a decrease of 35 percentage points in literacy readiness among second-graders and a drop of 26 percentage points on math measures among fifth-graders for the year that ended in June compared with 2019, the last school year that ended before the pandemic.
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Especially with those levels of learning loss, it is “absolutely critical” to have kids back in school, Elrich said. “That continues to be our top priority,” he said. “We want to make sure that not only are they back but they stay back.”
Vaccinations are also expected to help reduce quarantines over time. The Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for children 5 to 11 years old appears to be just days away.
Thousands of quarantines disrupt school in Montgomery
The shots, authorized in emergency action by the Food and Drug Administration last week, could be offered in some county middle schools as soon as the coming weekend, said acting county health officer James Bridgers.
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Several education advocates said the Montgomery County quarantine revisions lack clarity and could leave many parents confused. Some also questioned the accuracy of the school system’s coronavirus dashboard, which lists quarantine numbers.
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As of Monday, the dashboard said there were no active cases and no active quarantines, which a spokesman attributed to a time lag in how the dashboard is updated. Since the beginning of the school year, there have been 712 student and staff positive cases and 7,368 student quarantines, according to the dashboard.
Cynthia Simonson, president of Montgomery’s countywide council of PTAs, said the quarantine changes appear to give schools “extra tools” to keep students learning in person. But how all of the new practices fit together is murky, she said.
Simonson asked why nothing was still in writing as of Monday evening.
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“I am disappointed,” she said. “One of the biggest challenges parents have is understanding the protocols, and even now, a quarter into the school year, there is ambiguity.”
Jennifer Reesman, a parent who has been active on the issue, said school leaders need to be more judicious in deciding which students have truly come in close contact with a classmate who tested positive.
Some of the changes described could be helpful, Reesman said, but if her child was exposed to the virus at school, “I wouldn’t know what’s going to happen.”