Despite pandemic, most Lake County schools stayed open throughout fall semester
Despite enormous challenges, data show mitigation techniques used by Lake County public schools were effective at limiting the spread of COVID-19 during the fall semester, and a majority of students were able to learn in classrooms without having to go remote.
Schools used a multilayered approach to COVID-19 mitigation, including enforcing face masks, physical distancing, using improved air filtering and even rolling the windows down on school bus trips, officials said.
Lake County Regional Superintendent of Schools Michael Karner said he'd heard of just one school - Palombi Middle School in Lake Villa - suspending in-person learning, and even that was for two days only.
"It is a huge credit to nurses, staff and district leaders," Karner said. "They're the ones working to make sure schools stay open."
Dr. Sana Ahmed, an epidemiologist with the Lake County Health Department, said as the omicron variant arrived in the area in mid-December a few additional schools decided to switch to remote learning early before winter break, but not for long.
Precise numbers on COVID-19 in Lake County schools were published earlier this month in a study by the health department on its new technique to reduce the number of in-person learning days lost. From school start in August through Oct. 29, 258 COVID-19 cases were reported at 90 schools across 31 Lake County school districts.
In the past, every student, teacher and faculty member who had been in close contact with someone who tested positive would be required to quarantine. But under the health department's "test to stay" strategy, close contacts were allowed to stay in school provided both the infected person and the close contact were masked when the exposure might have happened, the close contact had no symptoms, and the close contact was tested on one, three, five and seven days after exposure to the infected person.
Only 16 people out of 1,035 who had been in close contact with an infected person tested positive for COVID-19 themselves. Assuming each of those 1,035 close contacts would have had to miss a maximum of eight school days quarantining under the old plan, up to 8,152 in-person learning days were saved by the test-to-stay strategy, according to the health department.
Ahmed said she could not emphasize enough how important the hard work done by school officials and students has been to keep classrooms open thus far.
While celebrating the successes of the fall semester, Ahmed admitted she was nervous about the looming threat of omicron while students are on holiday break with their families.
"I hope the schools get out to a good start in the spring," Ahmed said. "In-person learning is so critical, it is a high priority to find ways to ensure kids stay in the classroom."