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The announcement by the Westport School District came on Friday afternoon, Dec. 31.
The district said it will extend the winter break by one day for all students and that Monday, Jan. 3 will not be a school day for students. All faculty and staff will report on Monday.
"This will enable the district to work collaboratively to develop a range of responses to the changing conditions over the coming weeks," Westport Superintendent of Schools Thomas Scarice said in an email to the community. "The fluid situation requires thoughtful consideration and this additional day on Monday provides a measure of time to continue planning and assessing actual staffing levels to ensure that we can provide a healthy and optimal educational experience for our students."
Scarice said the district team has been working the entire week to make provisions for:
- A range of potential Executive Orders or state emergency declarations,
- Additional ways to support a significant increase in the number of students in isolation due to infection
- Optimizing mitigating measures in schools, such as lunch waves
- State adoption of new CDC guidance which potentially shortens isolation and quarantine periods, and redefines “fully vaccinated” (all of which could impact staffing levels and student attendance)
- High school mid-term exams
"We are experiencing infection rates unlike any time since the start of the pandemic," Scarice said. "We do know that our students are best served being in school and, along with continuing to maintain the health and safety of our students and staff, keeping our students in school and engaged in all of their programs remains our priority."
Earlier this week, a pediatrician who is an expert on disease and vaccine development sounded the alarm about the ability of schools to resume in-person learning during the height of the new wave of the COVID-19 pandemic sparked by a surge of cases from the highly contagious Omicron variant.
"Here's the problem," Hotez said in an interview on MSNBC Wednesday morning, Dec. 29. "We're kind of going off old information what it's been like for the previous variants, the previous lineages.
"Omicron's a different animal. Omicron is so highly transmissible at a level of transmissibility around the level potentially of measles, which is the most transmissible common virus agent we know."
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