The Bristol Warren Regional School Committee voted on Monday night by a 6-3 margin to approve an Epidemiology and Lab Capacity (ELC) grant — provided in coordination with the federal government and the Rhode Island Department of Health — in the amount of $154,494.11 to help supplement its health infrastructure and hire personnel to help administer PCR testing within the district’s schools.

The grant refunds up-front costs incurred by the district for approved uses on a quarterly basis, and will provide more than $100,000 to compensate six nurse technicians, three testing assistants, a PPE distribution manager and a courier who will take test samples to the state lab in North Kingstown when necessary. It will also provide more than $35,000 to allow the district to replace 463 air filters throughout its school buildings.

Mt. Hope High School nurse Ella Estrella told the committee that the grant would provide much-needed support to overworked nurses throughout the district.

She said that since state regulations require a negative PCR test before a student displaying possible COVID symptoms can return to class (a negative rapid test is no longer sufficient in such cases), it makes more sense to have nurses be able to provide them in the school setting rather than force the child’s parens to schedule a test at an outside facility, many of which have closed or are rapidly becoming inundated. Tests from schools also receive priority in line at the state lab over those from outside testing facilities.

“This is a way to facilitate the testing quicker,” Estrella said. “This is a tool in our toolbox so we can get the kids back in.”
Not all school committee members were convinced of the benefits of in-school testing, however. School Committee Treasurer Sheila Ellsworth took issue with the fact that Bristol Warren would classify the superintendent as the manager of the testing program, responsible for overseeing the efficacy and organization of the process.

“Our superintendent is going to be tied up with making sure that all of these programs are running efficiently and effectively when, my concern is that our education is really struggling right now,” she said. “I really feel like this is RIDE’s wheelhouse, and not the school department.”

School Committee Vice Chairperson Tara Thibaudeau agreed with that sentiment.

“I don’t think that it’s our business to get into RIDOH’s business. Our job is to educate,” she said. “We keep over-stretching ourselves, and we need to stop doing that. We need to start really focusing on what our job is, and this is not our job.”

School Committee member Sarah Bullard responded to Thibaudeau’s assertion.

“I think it is our job to protect the health of the students that are under our purview and the staff as well,” she said. “And given a worldwide pandemic, to have the power and the funding to address what we can at a community level … Having the opportunity to address the issue in-house, I think is appropriate.”

School committee member Nicky Piper related back to Estrella’s comments about how in-school testing could shorten the amount of time students are interrupted from school as a “no-brainer” example of good education policy.

“I think anything we can do to keep more of our kids in their classroom in front of their teachers and with their peers in a safe way is worth doing,” she said. “This is, not even indirectly, this is directly supporting us in our job to educate.”

School Committee Chairperson Marjorie McBride said, if she had a child who was sick, she would feel more comfortable having the choice to handle that situation personally.

“If somebody calls me and says your child is sick, then I’m going to come to the school and I’m going to pick them up and I’m going to take them home, I’m going to take them to the pediatrician, or I’m going to take them for a test, or I’m going to do whatever it is I think is appropriate for my child,” she said.

The district is not mandating that children take a PCR test at school. Parents have already been given the choice to opt in or out of allowing their child to be tested in school. The same permission must be granted to give a PCR test in school.

Piper further reasoned that the issue at hand is less about parental choice and more about providing the option for a more efficient method of testing to get students back in classrooms quicker.

“It’s not about parent choice if you want to test,” she said. “If your kid is sent home, they can’t come back without a test.”

School committee member Karen Cabral, initially appearing hesitant about the process but ultimately voting in approval of accepting the grant money, said she wanted to ensure that adding PCR testing to the schools would not further burden the nursing staff.

“I just want to make sure that this doesn’t create more work in terms of accepting this money. Because yes, it’s a pandemic, but if you think about it, our school is full of teachers. We have very few nurses,” she said. “I know it’s a pandemic, but I think it’s a lot to put on a nurse and an assistant to try to manage the pandemic.”

School committee member Erin Schofield reasoned that the school nurses were already managing the pandemic in the schools, and were the ones hoping to receive financial support from the grant to help them do so.

“I hear what you’re saying, but our nurses are asking for this,” she said. “So, I don’t understand why we’re sitting here talking about them not being able to handle it and being overburdened as it is, when they’re asking for it and saying that this will actually assist them.”

In the end, the measure passed 6-3, with McBride, Thibaudeau and Ellsworth voting against accepting the money.