NEW BRITAIN, Conn. — Governor Lamont and top state education officials visited New Britain High School Tuesday.
New Britain is just one of the many districts dealing with COVID related closures. In fact, the Smith Elementary School is remote until Wednesday.
It was just last Tuesday when FOX61 learned about COVID cases throughout the New Britain school district including at the high school where Gov. Lamont held an event inside the auditorium to promote more diversity in teacher hiring.
After the event, he caught up with FOX61 to talk about the state of our schools.
We are six weeks into the school year and 370 students have been infected with COVID.
150 staff have also tested positive for the virus.
But state education Commissioner Miguel Cardona said, "We don’t want to overshadow the fact that over the last week over 370,000 students have entered schoolhouse, been in front of their teachers and learned in person and they’ve been able to do that successfully. We have kids engaging in activities that they haven’t been able to engage in for six months. Reconnecting."
Last week, the Governor said the White House promised 69,000 Abbot Lab rapid tests would arrive to help schools test symptomatic students. But they still haven’t arrived.
"Today is Tuesday, let’s go," urged the Governor. "We will stretch those 69,000 as best we can to all the districts starting with those that are most disadvantaged and the White House has said we are going to get a million these between now and the end of the year."
But testing isn’t the only trouble.
Districts are dealing with a lack of bodies to supervise classrooms. Substitutes are in short supply.
"We’ve provided some flexibility so if you have paraeducators who have so many years of service already. Allowing them to serve as long-term subs. And we are going to continue to get creative with our Universities and talent office to try and get that number up higher," explained Commissioner Cardona.
Gov. Lamont says he remains on track to reopen the state for phase 3 on Thursday and is confident that schools are succeeding in their mission.
"I think you going to find that being a school and in the classroom is a safe place to be. A lot of the infections that Miguel is talking about have taken place off-campus. Remote learning folks, hanging out with different cohorts, sports teams, things like that," said Lamont.
The administration was quick to point out that there are 530,000 public school students in CT.
About 370,000 are back in the classroom and confirmed cases represent .008 of the population — far less than the test positivity rate in the general community.
The state says they are also working with the Department of Public Health to create a more sophisticated system to report and track COVID data in the schools.