GFA Sees First Positive COVID-19 Case
By Will San Jose ’22 and Jake Farber ’22
During its second week of in-person school, Greens Farms Academy experienced its first positive COVID-19 case, forcing it to enact its contact tracing protocols for the first time this year.
Head of School Bob Whelan said he expected a positive case sometime within the first few weeks of school.
“It’s a question of when we would have our first positive case,” he said. “I was hoping it would happen by the third week. But the second week was okay.”
The first GFA community member to test positive for COVID-19 was a fifth-grade student. Although no other fifth-grade students met the CDC’s criteria for close contact with the positive student, eight students were recommended by the school to quarantine and participate in class via Zoom.
The school referenced daily seating charts to determine which students were in “close proximity” during class with the student who tested positive.
“We erred on the side of caution,” Whelan said. “There are [a] very limited number of times over the course of the day where anybody would have what the CDC would characterize as a close contact.”
Whelan acknowledged the importance of recent outbreaks at nearby schools in Fairfield and New Canaan, and emphasized GFA’s consistent attention to similarly relevant case numbers.
“We could conceivably have a very healthy profile as a school with few—if any—positive cases, but if [...] neighboring counties’ [...] numbers changed, I can’t imagine a scenario where we would forge on ahead, because we work in partnership with those organizations.”
GFA continually refers to the COVID-19 guidelines set by the Westport-Weston Health District to determine its ability to hold school in-person. The district has also provided a formula for schools that takes into account statistics such as the area’s positive cases, positive case number as a proportion of tests and available ICU beds to help administrations decide whether it is safe to remain in person.
Although cases within GFA and the state population have been relatively low as of late, the school remains adamant about preventing further outbreaks.
“Teenagers want to be near one another, and teenagers have a tendency to huddle with each other, and I get it, it’s very natural—it’s weird not to—but we’re not immune to contracting the virus,” Whelan said. “The same things that we do in school, they apply outside of school.”
Whelan additionally spoke of the school’s reliance on students to stay safe while off campus.
“We’re not fans of having to and we’re not good at policing people’s lives outside of school, nor should we; nobody wins when a school does that,” Whelan said. “We’re relying on just the ethos that we take care of one another.”