San Mateo Union High School District schools relax COVID testing

COVID-19 testing requirements for students at San Mateo Union High School District campuses have been suspended through the start of the next school year after staff argued upholding the board policy was an administrative struggle.

“If we’re going to have a board policy, we should be able to follow it and we should be able to do what’s right for students,” said Superintendent Kevin Skelly during Thursday’s Board of Trustees meeting.

A policy passed by the Board of Trustees last October requiring unvaccinated students to submit to weekly testing to participate in extracurricular activities is now on pause. Instead, the district will look to guidance from the California Department of Public Health which currently strongly recommends masking but has left it up to individual jurisdictions to implement stronger protocol.

Skelly argued in favor of the policy shift, noting health staff has struggled to keep track of which individuals count as fully vaccinated as permissions around boosters have expanded, calling it a “daunting administrative duty.” The state currently requires that unvaccinated school staff be tested weekly, which has also been an administrative headache, Skelly said.

A high majority of students and staff have been vaccinated but Skelly also argued the policy has had a “chilling effect” on students who have turned to administrators in distress after not being able to test and then participate in activities.

As of this Tuesday, people as young as 6 months old are now eligible for vaccination and people ages 18 and older qualify for a booster shot. People ages 55 and older now qualify for a second booster dose.

The changes have caused staff to question who qualifies as fully vaccinated now. The board policy was drafted and approved when kids younger than 16 were not eligible for a vaccine and being fully vaccinated meant an individual was two weeks past receiving their second COVID-19 vaccine dose.

The policy was also adopted at a time when COVID-19 infections were on the rise and was intended to protect district community members who were either not yet vaccinated or who were at high risk of experiencing heightened symptoms or death if they contracted the virus.

That risk is still prevalent in the community, President Peter Hanley and Trustee Ligia Andrade Zúñiga said. Both sided against suspending the policy after noting students will likely return to school next year after traveling, increasing the importance of having safety measures in place on the first day of the fall semester.

“I think it’s way too soon. I think that it’s still a huge public health risk,” Andrade Zúñiga said, stressing her concerns about new strains that have spread across the community. “I just don’t trust it yet and I think about the health of our teachers and our students themselves. I do worry about our students who are unvaccinated.”

COVID-19 cases spiked as students returned to class after this winter break and after a brief dip, have remained at a steady high rate. More than 11,000 cases have occurred across the county in the last 30 days and the county’s test positivity rate based on a seven-day rolling average sits at 10.8%, prompting County Health officials to stress the importance of practicing strong safety measures like masking and social distancing.

When questioned by Andrade Zúñiga about whether County Heath could provide support to the district, Skelly said assistance would be unlikely given that the district policy is beyond what’s demanded by the state and that it has routinely run one of the most robust contract tracing efforts in the county.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has placed the county in the medium-risk tier and county officials have encouraged the public to remain vigilant in practicing safety measures including getting vaccinated, staying on schedule with boosters and honoring social distancing and masking when indoors.

The district has often adopted stricter policies than the state has required and what other districts have adopted. In addition to its testing policy, students and staff were expected to mask while indoors for most of the school year.

But the remaining three trustees agreed with Skelly that the board’s policy on testing should be practical and easily implemented. The board is slated to discuss the policy again during its next meeting Aug. 11. School returns Aug. 10. Skelly said additional recommendations could come from the state before that time.

“At this point, we have to start realizing what shifts are going to be made and what we’re going to have to do in the future. It’s not going to be able to be as strict and stringent as it has been,” Trustee Greg land said. “We’ve made very good choices but I think we’re at a crossroads right now and the crossroads is this policy doesn’t make sense.”

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