Catholic school adds weekly testing to stop COVID spread

As pandemic continues, newest variant forces three schools to go back to virtual classes

Published: February 10, 2022

By Aprille Hanson Spivey
Associate Editor

Jasmine Gonzalez

St. Theresa School seventh-grade student Bonnie Dunn takes a COVID-19 test Jan. 28 in the library. The Little Rock school is the only Catholic school to bring the Arkansas Department of Health's free COVID testing program to their school.

Jasmine Gonzalez

As kindergartener Claire Holden was swabbing her nose for an at-school COVID-19 test Jan. 28, she sang the words “The swab in the nose goes ‘round and round,” to the tune of “Wheels on the Bus.”

It was one “life hack” her mother Whitney Holden came up with in an effort to make testing less scary, said Kristy Dunn, principal at St. Theresa School in Little Rock.

Testing was one of the ways the start of the spring semester had ongoing reminders of the COVID-19 pandemic. Masks, and for some virtual learning, have been the norm as students returned to school during a surge of the omicron variant. Even in the first few days of February, COVID-19 guidelines continued to evolve.

‘Exhausted’ from COVID

“If a student is a close contact, within a household, and cannot isolate from the positive person, then that child should be quarantined and be tested after the fifth day before returning to school. All positive cases are required to isolate for the five days and be symptom free before returning to school.”

Ileana Dobbins, associate superintendent of Catholic Schools and the diocesan point of contact for schools reporting COVID-19, had a bit of a reprieve Jan. 28 from recording positive COVID-19 cases shared from the schools — she only had to log in two so far that afternoon. At its monthly peak, she was logging 15 to 20 or more a day.

“What we're seeing is a whole lot of transmission within households, so really not seeing the transmission coming from schools. When I get a student's name it’s not uncommon to see a sibling at another school” who also is positive, Dobbins said.

On Feb. 1, Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced public schools would no longer be directed to trace close contacts of those who test positive for COVID-19 or make them quarantine. It would be up to each district if they wanted to continue the practice. The Catholic Schools Office released a statement the next day, that they would also no longer ask schools to quarantine close contacts. However, schools will still contact trace to inform parents if a child is a close contact so they can be monitored for symptoms.

On Jan. 5, the schools office mandated that schools located in a county with 100 or more new COVID-19 infections per 10,000 people must have students, faculty and staff wear masks at all times on campus. Starting Feb. 9, because of decreasing COVID cases, the schools office announced masks would again be optional.

Dobbins said Sacred Heart School in Morrilton, Holy Rosary School in Stuttgart and St. Vincent de Paul School in Rogers had to go virtual for parts of January because of teacher’s contracting COVID or low attendance numbers due to the virus. During the week of Jan. 10, two out of 12 homeroom classes at St. Theresa School had to also go virtual.

“They’re exhausted, but they are doing a fantastic job,” Dobbins said of educators. “We get a lot of parents who will say ‘They're not going to get very sick,’ and thankfully, we’re not seeing them get very sick … but we never know which one kid would get that sick … We have kids in our school who have compromised immune systems. They might be the kid that gets very sick and we need to take care of each other.”

Testing students, staff

While long lines and a shortage of COVID-19 tests started to plague many cities in January, principals and points of contact representatives with a school met virtually with representatives of ThermoFischer Scientific Jan. 6 to learn more about testing in the schools. The at-school testing is funded through a grant from the Arkansas Department of Health.

St. Theresa School is the only Catholic school to opt for the free program. Testing is done once a week. At least five people have to participate in the program.

“Logistics were a concern and the amount of time it would take to complete the testing if they did it on a weekly basis,” Dobbins said. “Although the Arkansas Department of Health said ThermoFischer would send a person to do the testing, once ThermoFischer found out we were spread across the state and not in a centralized location, they encouraged finding their own person.”

In Fort Smith, Immaculate Conception School principal Sharon Blentlinger said she was interested initially because if a student was showing symptoms, they’d have testing available at the school. But with COVID-19 vaccine clinics locally, including at Trinity Junior High, and her school’s positive cases declining, they decided not to participate.

“I didn’t have any idea of how many people would or wouldn’t opt in, but I can tell you I don’t feel a great percentage of our parents got their children vaccinated, so I didn’t think a lot of parents would want the testing,” Blentlinger said, adding, “We didn’t feel like we wanted to become a medical facility.”

Logistically, testing made sense for St. Theresa School in Little Rock. Karla Robles, a registered nurse for 10 years who also works at CHI St. Vincent, has two children in the school and was hired in August, thanks to EANS (Emergency Assistance to Non-Public Schools) funding, as the school’s nurse. She works on Fridays, allowing for the weekly testing.

“The first reason is we always want to be 100 percent committed to safety and we as a school feel like we partner with parents to care for their children, and COVID is the thing we’re worried about with safety at the moment,” principal Dunn said.

An online database keeps track of the tests and results are sent to parents within 24 to 48 hours, making Friday an opportune time to test, allowing students to stay home the following week if they test positive. FedEx picks up the test-swab tubes and a local lab tests them, Dunn said.

Doing their part

As of Jan. 28, the first Friday of testing, there were 16 students and four staff members who signed up for the weekly testing, including Dunn. The first round of testing included 15 people.

“There’s no conflict,” Dunn said of the school and parents who may be against the COVID testing or guidelines. “Both sides, school staff and parents, we really understand each other. I know it’s the parents' decision, and I will never strongarm them to get their child tested.”

Dunn and Robles have been sensitive to situations where a child has sensory issues or might have some anxiety about being tested. It’s why tricks like using a song or having two kids test at the same time eases fears, they said.

“Most of the students have already gotten tested before so they were pretty comfortable,” Robles said. Students swab their own noses, per ThermoFischer guidance.

Parent Whitney Holden, microbiology and infectious disease teacher at Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts in Hot Springs, said she was initially hesitant to have her 6-year-old Claire tested until she learned they were administering the tests themselves. She has been vaccinated, but in case she is asymptomatic, Holden wants to keep other children safe.

“We had some rapid tests, and we knew that Claire was going to be tested weekly on Fridays. She’s been tested a few times before and has found it pretty uncomfortable,” Holden said. She gave her and her 2-year-old son Q-tips to practice while singing, “The swab in the nose goes ‘round and round,” to get the timing right.

“They both got really into it, they didn’t want to stop,” she said.

Holden, who holds a doctorate in microbiology and immunology from Vanderbilt University, said it’s important to teach children to do their part for the health and safety of their communities.

“I understand we all want to get back to normal, but I think that our school principals and faculty and staff are all working really, really hard to keep our kids safe,” she said.

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