Schools in New York had no sooner finished their reopening plans when the governor lobbed some new questions about Covid-19 testing at them, questions he said parents would be asking:
"How are you going to test? How many tests are you going to take? Are you sure you have them lined up? Are you sure those are enough tests? Is it a representative sample? How long is it going to take to turn around the tests – is it two days, four days, seven days?" Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Monday, repeating questions he asked Saturday.
State reopening guidance does not require schools to perform tests for the coronavirus, but suggests they coordinate with local health departments.
Some superintendents said they think putting out the question about testing in schools could suggest that the governor is not ready to open schools even in a hybrid model, where students go to the school two days a week and have remote learning the other three days.
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"There is no plan for testing; that's not a school component," Frontier Superintendent Richard Hughes said, asking if the governor would use a lack of testing or testing capacity as a reason for not returning to school buildings next month. "I just see him using it as an excuse to make us go virtual."
"It is a bit confusing because, as you know there is no explicit requirement for schools to conduct testing," said David Albert, spokesman for the New York State School Boards Association.
Guidance from the state Health Department says reopening plans should include the "process for the provision or referral of diagnostic testing for students, faculty, and staff for COVID-19, in consultation with local health department officials."
And guidance from the state Education Department is more specific: "It is strongly recommended that schools comply with CDC guidance and not conduct COVID-19 testing or require testing or antibody testing of students or staff members. The decision of whether a test needs to be conducted should be determined by a healthcare provider or the local department of health."
"We need some clarity because there seems to be mixed messaging right now between what we're seeing in the guidance and what the governor is saying," Albert said.
A spokesman for the governor said testing is "part of a continuum of mitigation efforts," including daily temperature checks, other screening measures and contact tracing, to reduce the spread of the virus.
“Districts must have a plan in place for testing related to symptomatic or exposed individuals, whether in school or through the local health department, that includes timely delivery of results and any ensuing testing of additional individuals," Cuomo spokesman Jason Conwall said in an email.
State Health Department "guidance allows districts to implement additional testing protocols,” Conwall said.
A spokesman for New York State United Teachers said the union, which has more than 600,000 members, believes that testing should be made available to everyone in the school community should someone test positive. And the union is calling on the federal government to deliver the resources to accomplish widespread testing.
"To help prevent the spread in the first place, we believe health officials must establish voluntary testing of the school community on a random basis to help better identify potential community spread," Matthew Hamilton, the spokesman, said in an email.
Hughes, of Frontier, said by focusing on testing in schools, which schools are not equipped to manage, the governor is creating distrust in the system.
"He’s moving a target," Hughes said. "There's no way we can meet a target on testing."
