The more students who take part in pooled testing, the better it can work to keep students in school, department officials said over Zoom Nov. 9.

The school committee’s monthly meeting came hours after Superintendent of Schools Terry Wood announced Wiscasset Middle High School was going remote through Nov. 12 due to a positive COVID-19 case with “several students ... deemed close contacts,” according to the latest of Wood’s series of letters at wiscassetschools.org

Wiscasset Elementary School was already on remote learning, since Nov. 3 due to two positive cases and a possible large quarantine; and Wood announced Nov. 8, due to four new cases, WES would stay remote through Nov. 12.

The closures are due more to the quarantine count than the number of positive cases, Wood explained. “When (the quarantines are) significant, it just makes sense to close the buildings ... When we have kids that are close to the end of their quarantine and then we get more positive cases, it just impacts that number of days they have to be quarantined.” 

When determining quarantines, the department consults the school nurse, Center for Disease Control and a “very strategically written out” state chart based on where a transmission happened and which students or staff are vaccinated or take part in the pooled testing, Wood said. Classroom, cafeteria and outside school transmissions all have different measures to follow, she said. 

“We’ve talked about this (before) and you all agree we want the kids in school as much as we can. So we don’t make these decisions lightly.”

Wood said the department will keep recommending the pooled testing. She may share a Regional School Unit 1 video, and may make a Wiscasset one, showing students taking their own samples for the pooled testing. Students swab their noses, and up to 25 samples go in each test tube, nurse Marilyn Sprague said. “All the kids at (WES) are very proud ... that they are doing it themselves,” Sprague said.

About four tubes each from WES and WMHS then go to contractor Concentric and results the next day show if any tubes were positive. If so, “somebody in that pool was positive,” and everyone whose sample went into that tube gives another swab, for another test, to find the positive case, she said.

WES teacher Trae Stover said her students have been fine with the pooled testing and would love to be part of a video. “Anything to keep the kids at school.”

School committee member Desiree Bailey recalled, the week of Nov. 1, most of her daughter’s classmates had to stay home a number of days but she was home only a day because she takes part in the pooled testing. “So (speaking) as a parent, that made it a little bit easier for her lifestyle, for sure, and I thought it was important for all parents to know it’s an option,” Bailey said. If more students were signed up, “It could work to the best of its ability” and the schools could catch COVID situations sooner, she said.

“Exactly,” Chair Michael Dunn said.

Sprague and Wood added, if a student is in the pooled testing and is part of a quarantine, they can come to school but when not at school, they must quarantine. They should be home, not at the playground or out shopping, Wood said. “We’re having a little bit of an issue ... with kids not quarantining,” she said. “So we keep trying to mention the importance.”

According to Sprague’s monthly report, with further education of parents, enrollment in pooled testing rose from 105 on Oct. 5 to 148 by month’s end.

In another development, because the department has more than 100 employees, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) may require a written vaccination policy. Wood said there would be a choice of policies, she was still looking into it, and did not recommend mandating employees be vaccinated “unless we’re told we have to.”

Otherwise, Wood said, “I don’t think that is our responsibility.”

Officials renewed their praise of students, Maintenance and Transportation Director John Merry and other administrators, and Wiscasset Community Center for stepping up in the pandemic.

Also Nov. 9, WMHS Principal Charles Lomonte thanked selectmen for their recent tap of the Larrabee Fund for $20,000 for musical instruments for middle and high school students. It was with joy and delight, Selectman and music teacher Terry Heller said.

In hires, Elizabeth Nichols-Goodliff has a one-year appointment teaching music at WMHS and Patricia Hanley will be an educational technician II at WES.