by Rachel Hunter
The Gouverneur Central School District on Feb. 18 announced that it would continue education via its remote learning model through the end of February. Students in out-of-district programs (i.e. BOCES, Ag Academy, etc.) continue to attend as long as they are not placed under quarantine, said Superintendent of Schools Lauren French.
“One of the things that we are looking at is we have a very high rate of student infection right now,” Superintendent French said in her weekly COVID-19 update to the GCSD community. “What I did is I went back and collected information… In January, we were basically getting one positive student every three days. Now we have one positive student every one and a half days, which means in the last nine days, we have taken six positive students. We took an additional positive student today. We’ve taken several positive employees. And so, because these people will not come off of quarantine until the end of next week, I am expressing my concern right now so that parents can make best decisions for their children that we will remain remote.
“I do understand that causes a great deal of consternation in the community. I know that not everybody is happy with that decision. What I have to do is make a decision on what is best for the vast majority of people. Personally, I am responsible for the health and safety of almost 2,000 people. We have just under 1,600 students. We have very close to 300 employees. Then we have the bus garage staff, and while they are not my direct employees… they are employees of First Student … they are employees that I care about and people that help us every day. So I have to be mindful that my decisions also take their care and their wellbeing in mind.
“I know some people have been critical on where I am getting my numbers (on the rate of infection) from… I explained it recently this way: The information that is posted about Gouverneur is just the Village and Town of Gouverneur. Our school district actually takes in seven different zipcodes. When people look at just Gouverneur and see that in the county yesterday we had 69 positive cases. Gouverneur, yesterday, only had 45. Those were not 45 new cases…
“So part of the consternation is: “Well, where is Mrs. French getting her numbers from?” Every night I get a file that is securely downloaded from Public Health. It goes to several people in the Nurse Department, and confirms all of the names of the people that I have to keep track of. Yesterday, that list was 134 people. Today, the list was 144 people. Those are the data points that I have to look at. So, in order to be mindful that people have to make safe plans for their children… I agree with that, and I want to support that… we will be remote for the next week. The reason for that is the majority of our people who are on quarantine right now will be off next Thursday and next Friday.
“The second piece of information that I have to ask people to help me with is: This is not a one-size fits all solution. A lot of times people have said, “Why can’t we do what Edwards is doing? Why can’t we do what Hermon-DeKalb is doing? Why can’t we do what Hammond is doing or Indian River?” We have a very discreet set of parameters that make Gouverneur Central School unique. We have many more students than Hammond, Hermon-DeKalb or Edwards. That is one thing.
“Some of those schools have parts of their campus that can be isolated. We do have three distinct campus settings – Elementary, Middle and High. But that doesn’t always make a difference if the bus is dropping students off at all three locations and the transmission occurs on the bus. Please understand, I am not putting bus drivers under the bus so to speak. Our bus drivers are the very first group of people that greet our kids, try to get them to school every day safely, support them. They are the individuals that notify us with needs and concerns and things for us to be aware of so I would never undermine their primary responsibility in keeping our students safe. But our busing, in terms of the fact that Gouverneur is 223 sq. miles – that is larger than both Canton and Potsdam combined. We pull in a lot of kids from a lot of areas, which means those students (not only on buses, but also in different areas) are exposed to a lot of different things.
“There are two things I am working on right now – and that is to reassure, not only my staff, but also the community that we are constantly plugging ahead to try to make a difference and to try to mitigate as many things as we can amid this pandemic. The first thing I am working on is COVID testing for athletes. The only fly in the ointment in my mind is that you do not have to be tested to play. That is state law, by the way, that’s not a Lauren French law. The state says that testing cannot be a pre-requisite to join a team. So, even if I test 90 percent of my athletes, and 10 percent say, “I am not testing,” they are still allowed to play. I don’t begrudge them the right to play but that certainly makes it very difficult to try to isolate and identify prior to any level of spreading whether or not an athlete is positive. However, regardless of that point, we are still going to go forward… We’ve been working on the paperwork and the permission slips that should be able to go out relatively quickly.
“The second thing I am working on, and find very valuable… I think it is going to be a game changer for us. The CDC just released new guidelines, and they are very interesting…The guidelines right now with CDC say: If you have had a vaccination, and you have had both vaccinations, that after a certain period of time, you don’t have to be put in quarantine anymore if you have been exposed to a positive person. You still have to be mindful that you can still be a carrier, and still carry the illness home to a child or an immunocompromised loved one or to a family member that you are taking care of. But to understand that to have two vaccinations gives you some level of protection…
“What I did today was send out a data collection form. It will be a private form, because this is confidential medical information. It is not mandatory that they take it because it is medical data, but for those people that are willing to take the collection… it will ask several questions: 1) Have you received both vaccinations? If so, will you have them both in place by March 1. Will you have them both in place by April 1? If we can get a good analysis of how many people and where they are and who has been vaccinated… then whenever any positive student case comes in, then we would be able to in all likelihood leave staff in place, allow them to continue teaching and only isolate a smaller number of students. This does not preclude students, but it certainly will enable us to have a safer opportunity to have staff present at the building and offering their instruction, keeping the routine in place. So, working this week on both of those, not only the athletic testing but also the vaccination requirements gives me a positive feeling that we are doing the right thing to try to move forward.
“As I said earlier, I know that this is not going to meet the needs of everyone. I understand that. I don’t think there is any one decision that I can make that would satisfy the needs of everyone. So, I fall back on what I have always found to be true and to always be the right decision. That is, to not compromise the safety of my staff or my scholars. This is the only way I can do this because it is the only variable I can control.
“I hate the fact that we have told people that they are in quarantine, that there are positive test results, and they refuse to quarantine. Those people who go out in the community are jeopardizing everything that we are trying to do. I just shudder about that because that is a cavalier attitude to take toward people who only want to be safe, and to be happy. Those individuals have the right to make that decision. It is just that it is counterintuitive and counter productive to what we are trying to do at school… and it continues the spread. I can’t control that, and therefore it makes it that much more difficult to open school.”
Superintendent French also shared that GCSD has had a lot of people helping by “making support visits to people in profound need.”
“The level of need in this community is huge,” Superintendent French said. “The home visits that I have made this week… the home visits, they are just sad. Thinking about them, we have people right now that are at home dealing with metastatic cancer and have a positive loved one. And the fear of the person with cancer – not only trying to get chemo, but stay isolated from a positive student is hard. I’ve walked into two of those situations where people with metastatic cancer now have a positive student living in the home. And it just makes you cry for them. It makes you sad…
“The other thing that I look at and think about is… I had a mom call. Both mom and son were positive, had to quarantine, could not go out of the house, didn’t have enough food, and so I called and said, “What sounds good to you?” She said some sandwich things, and I roasted a chicken and called her. I said, “I am going to come over and leave it on your porch… just turn a light on.” She said she had a dog and would have to hook him up because he is a big one… I said, “Is that all you need?” And I could tell by her voice that it wasn’t. So I pressed her… She said, “I need dog food.” I had to laugh. She said, “I am embarrassed to ask you for dog food.” And I said, “Well, your dog has to eat over the next 10 days, so I’ll get you dog food.” So I went to Price Chopper and got 10 cans of dog food. And this is how small town Gouverneur is… the checkout girl is a student. She said, “Mrs. French, I didn’t know you got a dog.” And I said that I didn’t. But that is what I love about Gouverneur. We do have people that when they need help, we have others that will help them.
“If somebody is looking for something to do, please post on Facebook that you are willing to help someone else. Right now, we have a lot of people who could use a kind word. They could use a kind message. They could use a kind thought. As we are remote this week, the whole goal is to stop the spread. You can do that by staying at home, staying masked, washing your hands, and thinking about protecting others.
“Until we can slow this down, it is going to be very difficult for us to return to normal. The two biggest things that are going to get us back to normal? One, having our staff receive their vaccinations. I am working at that. The second is when we are back at school and do the testing for athletes. Athletes are being given the priority because of the close contact that they are going to be in. And then, we will look to extend that out into the community.
“I thank you. I know that this is not easy. I have offered many, many times, if you need something, I am more than happy to help make it work for you. We’ve got an absolutely wonderful staff. I could not be where I am today without that group of people. I couldn’t be here today without our bus drivers. I couldn’t be here today without my board. Never have I gone through it. To be truthful, my great-grandfather died in it in 1918. I just happened to read his obituary the other night, both he and my great-grandmother died in it in 1918. Maybe I am sensitive to the fact that a pandemic is real, but being kind to people right now is what we need the most. I do care about you. I care about this community. We will get through this if we work together.”
Much gratitude was extended to all the community members who are volunteering to help amid the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. For those who are in need, leave a message with Mrs. French 315-486-2689, or at any of the school offices and they’ll try to connect your needs with a volunteer. All are encouraged to accept volunteer support.
For future COVID-19 updates at Gouverneur Central School District, follow their Facebook page (GCSD Wildcats) or read upcoming editions of the Gouverneur Tribune Press. Any questions can be directed to building principals – High School (287-1900), Middle School (287-1903), and Elementary (287-2260).