information from the School Committee

Sumbul Siddiqui Mayor OFFICE OF THE MAYOR To: Cambridge City Council From: Sumbul Siddiqui, Mayor Date: January 6, 2022 Subject: Communicating information from the School Committee To the Honorable, the City Council: On Monday, January 3, the School Committee inauguration was held at 6pm and the 2022-2023 Committee members were sworn in. The School Committee this term includes the following members: Sumbul Siddiqui (Chair), Rachel Weinstein (Vice-Chair), Akriti Bhambi, Alfred B. Fantini, José Luis Rojas Villarreal, David Weinstein, Ayesha Wilson. Please join me in congratulating the Committee. On Tuesday, January 4, the Committee held its first meeting of the new term. The Committee spent a large portion of the meeting discussing the Covid testing that took place on Monday while all schools were closed. CPS had made the decision with Cambridge Public Health Department to delay the return to school until Wednesday, January 5 for staff and student COVID testing. The plan was to test on Monday, receive results on Tuesday, and ensure that no one with a positive Covid test reported to school when classes resumed on Wednesday. However, after facing extremely long lines on Monday (in sub-freezing weather), most families did not receive all their results due to a variety of factors at the lab. Please see this statement from me and Vice-Chair Rachel regarding the challenges learned from this experience. We will be conducting an action review. The CPS team sent out an email with information about the current Covid testing situation, as well as the plan moving forward. Here is what was families received: • The vast majority of results will not be not be available due to a variety of factors at the lab. We are not the only district experiencing this challenge. This is incredibly disappointing to everyone involved, especially the many families and students who changed work and childcare plans at the last minute and stood in long lines to get tested. The lab has taken full responsibility and, with the support of the state, are providing additional testing teams from the National Guard to conduct rapid tests for us today. • We prioritized the National Guard to the sites that had the largest number of students in the positive pools, beginning with CRLS. There they tested the 123 students who were in

Monday’s positive pool samples, any close contacts identified through contact tracing and anyone who wanted to be tested. • The team split and then went to the next group of schools with a large number of students in a positive pool: CSUS/KO and RAUC/Peabody. At these schools they are also testing the students who were in Monday’s positive pool samples and any close contacts identified through contact tracing. • All other schools have worked to identify as many students as possible who were in a positive pool. They are doing regular surveillance testing and testing unvaccinated close contacts through Test and Stay. • On Monday, we will resume our robust testing schedule of weekly testing for all students and staff. Hundreds of additional students will be included in this plan due to the additional consents collected on Monday. At the meeting, we also discussed revising the quarantine policy to 5 days to 10 days with a negative test. More details will be coming for families from Cambridge Public Health. Our next school committee hearing will be January 18. Please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions, suggestions, or concerns. Respectfully, Mayor Siddiqui