HILLEL
Jews in the D
Hillel Opens Its Doors After COVID Scare One staffer tested positive last week and is quarantining at home. DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER
16 |
SEPTEMBER 10 • 2020
son learning on Wednesday, Sept. 2, as scheduled. Staff #1, who was in the building on Tuesday, Aug. 25, was said to have maintained a six-foot distance from other staff members, was masked inside the building and presumed to have had no contact with students or parents at that day’s Meet and Greets. “Per our school protocols, school nurse Gail Chynoweth conducted extensive contact tracing for this staff member, and also contacted the Oakland County Health Division,” the letter stated. Six teachers who span all across the Hillel K-8 communities were known or presumed to have come into contact with Staff #2 for more than 15 minutes. Dr. Katz’s second letter said that the Oakland County Health Division had confirmed these six staff members no longer needed to quarantine after the negative COVID test results were revealed. All Hillel students have a choice between an in-person and flexible learning model, which allows any student who wants to learn from home to do so. Hillel also reiterated that Staff #1, who tested positive for COVID-19, has been out of the building since the previous
Wednesday. “We have no concerns of exposure following our extensive contact tracing and confirmation from the Oakland County Health Department. This staff member continues to convalesce at home and we wish this staff member a full recovery,” the letter said. “The health and safety of our entire community is paramount every year, and especially this year,” Dr. Katz wrote in a statement to the JN on Tuesday. “We are grateful that our staff member is feeling better and are excited to welcome students to school tomorrow. We are going to have a great year!” FAMILIES DECIDE Glen Schwartz, parent of a Hillel 1st- and 4th-grader who are both using the virtual flexible learning model, has been following the school’s updates and thinks everyone has the best intentions in mind. “I thought Hillel did a great job of communicating what was going on,” Schwartz said. “It was certainly disappointing to hear that someone had tested positive, not because of what Hillel had been doing, but just in general. Obviously, that’s scary for everybody, but I thought it was handled well.” Schwartz is electing to keep
his kids virtual learning at home because he said there are immunocompromised individuals in his family. “At the end of the day, my wife’s family is older, so we were concerned there, and on my side of the family I’ve got someone that’s immunocompromised,” Schwartz said. “For us, it just made more sense to keep them home, thinking that if they went to school — not even considering that it would be unsafe, just that in the event something did happen or even didn’t for that matter — we wouldn’t be able to be around those family members as a precautionary measure. We didn’t want to do that, so we made the decision to keep them out. “This is just such an unknown, and I think people are trying to deal with the cards that they’ve been dealt, and frankly not be political about it on either side,” Schwartz continued. “I don’t think anyone is wrong for the way they feel, and I don’t know that there’s a solution that’s right or wrong. “I don’t think anyone is not putting the kids interests at heart or not putting the parents’ interests at heart, I just think everyone’s trying to do the best they can.”
FACING PAGE IS SPONSORED CONTENT
H
illel Day School welcomed students back for in-person classes on Wednesday, Sept. 2, three days after sending a letter notifying parents that one of its staff had tested positive for COVID-19. In a pair of letters to families last week, Dr. Darin S. Katz, head of school at Hillel, said the school had been made aware that one Hillel staff member (referred to as Staff #1) had been diagnosed with COVID-19 and that another staff member (referred to as Staff #2) had symptoms consistent with COVID-19, but ultimately tested negative for the virus. The first letter, sent Sunday, Aug. 30, stated that both cases were presumed to be unrelated to each other, that the cases were presumed to not have been contracted at school and that both individuals previously tested negative when all staff members were tested at Hillel on Tuesday, Aug. 18. A follow-up letter sent Monday, Aug. 31, stated that Staff #2, who had previously tested negative on a rapid COVID test, had also tested negative on a molecular nasal PCR test, and that the school would indeed begin in-per-
Hillel Day School
