By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT -– COVID cases are on the rise and some parents have asked the district about the possibility of going remote after the holiday break.

Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice told the Board of Education on Monday night, however, that it is not within local officials’ power to do so short of an outbreak.

“Legally Not an Option”

“It is important to share that this type of action is not permitted this year,” he said. “It is legally not an option” without an executive order from the state allowing a return to remote learning.

While the district can offer tutoring, Zoom instruction and remote contact with teachers if those students are in COVID-19 isolation or quarantine, the district is not permitted to preemptively change learning models to remote instruction as a school district, or even for an individual school, he said.

“That provision was removed prior to the start of the school year,” Scarice said, though he added that in the event of a localized outbreak, a school or the district could hypothetically go to a remote model.

On Monday evening the district reported that there were 18 new cases of COVID among staff and students, six of which were at Bedford Middle School and seven at Staples High School.

Numbers on the Rise

There have been 62 new cases in the schools over the past two weeks, which numbers on the rise.

Scarice characterized the situation as a challenge and said Supervisor of Health Services Sue Levasseur is to remain a fixture at board meetings as she provides twice monthly health updates.

Levasseur told the board that there has been an increase in cases nationwide with the Delta and now Omicron variants of the virus sweeping the northeast.

She called Omicron more transmissible, which means more cases, but said it was seemingly less severe.

“The thinking now is that what we are seeing now is a surge that may continue for the next couple of weeks or month or so and then go down quickly,” she said.

In Connecticut, the positivity rate is up to 6.8 percent. Hospitalizations are on the rise, predominantly among unvaccinated people.

Numbers Reflect Community

“We have 5,400 kids and 1,000 adults [in our district],” Scarice said. “The numbers we are seeing are reflective of the community.”

“The spike of new COVID cases are quite dramatic,” Levasseur said.

Many of the cases seem to come from family contacts or unknown contacts, as well as extracurricular activities. 

Most school cases are scattered. There have been two classes with two or three positive cases, but no cluster per school or age group, the board was told.

Symptoms Mild to Moderate

Many of the new cases are among vaccinated individuals and symptoms are said to be mild to moderate.

“A lot of cold symptoms, sore throats, a lot of fatigue,” Levasseur said.

Many families are having trouble finding at-home tests, as they’re flying off the shelves.

The district continues with mitigation measures, such as masks, social distancing and a voluntary testing program for unvaccinated students.

Levasseur’s office plans to continue to monitor cases over the break.

“We will continue to work our way through this,” she said. “The good news [is] we are not seeing serious illness.”