The numbers were looking very promising in Union Township’s public schools in early November, with just one student reporting a positive COVID-19 test across the entire school district the first week of the month.
Then, the numbers started to climb. There were 26 positive cases among students the week ending Nov. 11, then 37 more the following week and another 40 the week of Thanksgiving, according to the district’s COVID dashboard.
By the end of last week, an additional 72 Union Township students had tested positive, the district said. Five schools in the 7,700-student district switched to half-day schedules after officials consulted with the local health department to assess their options.
“I know the half days cause problems for many of our parents and guardians’ schedules; we will always be very mindful of this challenge when we make decisions,” Union Township Schools Superintendent Scott Taylor said in a message to parents.
Union Township is one of many New Jersey school districts seeing an alarming spike in positive COVID-19 cases, leading to thousands of students testing positive for the coronavirus or being asked to stay home and quarantine because classmates are sick.
Last week, New Jersey schools reported 3,024 new positive student cases and 858 new positive cases among teachers and school staff, according to the state’s COVID-19 dashboard.
That is 2.66 cases among every 1,000 students and 4.41 cases among every 1,000 school staff members, by far the highest infection rates since New Jersey began publicly tracking the school data in September. The rising number of school cases comes as the state has been reporting its highest seven-day average for positive cases since April.
It is unclear how many students are quarantining and learning from home because their classmates have tested positive.
Students in some counties are being told to quarantine for 14 days — with no option to return to school earlier if they test negative for the virus — because part of New Jersey is now classified orange (signifying “high” virus activity) on the state’s weekly COVID activity report. The high virus transmission rates have triggered stricter school quarantine rules in some districts, under the state’s school health guidelines.
That means some students told to quarantine for 14 days starting this week will only be able to return to class in person for only a few days, if at all, before schools shut down for the holidays and reopen in January.
New Jersey's COVID activity map for the week ending Nov. 27 shows much of the state has moved to orange, indicating "high" virus activity. That has triggered stricter school quarantine rules in some counties.
Last week, Gov. Phil Murphy said there were no immediate plans to switch schools to remote learning, reinstate lockdowns or impose other restrictions in New Jersey as worries rise about the new omicron variant and rising COVID cases statewide.
“Nothing is in the cards, but we take nothing off the table,” Murphy said.
The increase in student cases also comes as many children 12 and younger are getting or recently completed receiving their two vaccine shots. Children ages 5 through 11 became eligible to receive the Pfizer vaccine in early November.
It is difficult to know if the increase in cases in schools is related to students and teachers traveling or visiting family during Thanksgiving week. Many districts asked students to voluntarily quarantine for 7 to 10 days if they traveled beyond New Jersey and neighboring states during the holiday week.
Despite the rise in school cases statewide, few New Jersey schools have shut down and temporarily switched to remote learning due to COVID-19 outbreaks. As of Monday, only 24 of the state’s more than 2,500 public schools and private schools for students with disabilities had closed temporarily due to positive cases since September, according to the state Department of Education.
The only public school currently closed is Long Valley Middle School in Washington Township in Morris County, which is scheduled to reopen Thursday, state education officials said.
“I know the temporary switch to full remote learning was disappointing and upsetting for many. I want to reassure the community we remain fully committed to operating with full days of in person instruction,” Peter Turnamian, the superintendent of Washington Township schools said in a letter to parents Monday.
The Matheny School, a private school for students with disabilities in Peapack in Somerset County, has also been operating virtually since September.
“The Matheny School continues to operate virtually under the direction of the local department of health based upon the medical fragility of the students it serves including those who are residents of the Matheny Hospital,” the school said in a statement.
New Jersey loosened its rules for shutting down in-person classes and quarantining students for the 2021-2022 school year, making it easier for schools to stay open even if they have rising numbers of COVID cases.
The state scrapped the complex “matrix” charts schools were required to use last year outlining what schools should do if they had one, two or three cases in a classroom. This year, school officials were told to consult with local health officials on what to do if they have an “outbreak” of three or more cases in which students or teachers appear to have caught COVID-19 at school.
As of last week, New Jersey schools had reported 217 outbreaks involving 1,172 cases since the start of the school year. Those were cases where contact tracers determined three or more students or staff gave the virus to each other at school.
New Jersey also changed its rules on what a “close contact” is considered in a school. Students who sit within six feet of each other in the classroom are no longer considered “close contacts” who need to quarantine if one tests positive. Instead, a close contact is now considered a student who sits less than three feet from a classmate.
How long a “close contact” must stay home from school varies according to how high the COVID-19 transmission rate is in your area. In areas that are green (meaning “low risk) or yellow (meaning “moderate risk”) on the weekly COVID activity map, quarantined students are only required to stay home 10 days after they are exposed to the virus. They can cut their quarantine to seven days if they test negative for the virus.
In areas that are orange (meaning “high risk”) on the weekly COVID map, students told to quarantine must stay out of school for a full 14 days. There is no option to return to school earlier, even if the student tests negative for the virus.
However, the state health guidelines for schools are just guidelines. School districts can make their own quarantine rules and some school boards have chosen to require longer or shorter quarantines than the state’s recommendations.
As of Monday, the counties where the state is recommending students quarantine for 14 days included: Hunterdon, Mercer, Somerset, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Union, Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Salem.
The rest of the state was classified “yellow” on the COVID activity map, so the state is recommending students exposed to COVID in those counties quarantine seven days if they test negative, or 10 days if they don’t get tested.
An updated COVID activity map is expected to be released later this week.
As of last week, about 1.9% of New Jersey students were “excluded” from school — either because they tested positive for COVID or because they were a “close contact” told to quarantine, according to the state data.
The counties with the highest percentages of quarantined students were Salem (4.8% of all students), Morris (3.8%), Sussex (3.5%) and Ocean (3.4%), according to the data reported by 2,247 schools statewide last week.
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Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com.