So here’s how the week started. Last Sunday, February 28, Ashton played in an awesome hockey game against Dedham. It was literally 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, 3-3, and so on. They ended up winning by one goal and it was epic. Ashton scored a great goal, Grandma was there (vaccinated herself and visiting! Yay!!), GG watched online, and it was just one of those great ones.
Monday morning they went off to school for the first time in 16 days. After February vacation and then a remote week, boy was everyone ready.
The joy was shortlived. Tuesday morning at 10 am we get the email: a player on the Dedham team had tested positive. Because Ashton’s team had played them, according to the strict rules that govern hockey, they had to be quarantined and tested. So we pulled Ashton out of school and he spent the rest of the week bored out of his mind and flopping around the living room. All his hockey practices had been cancelled, he couldn’t play football with kids in the neighborhood, and he was unable to attend the first indoor lacrosse clinic. Luckily he tested negative on Friday, as did the rest of his team. But like, UGH. And this upcoming week is remote so by the time he goes back to school in person on March 15, he will have gone 1 full day in 4 weeks. ONE.
In the middle of all this, one of the neighboring towns announced their plan to bring all kids back to school, in grades K-5, full time, by April 5. Natick is no doubt going to feel tremendous pressure to get all the kids in our district back as well, and in fact there is a huge meeting tomorrow night about it. As of last Friday, the Commissioner was likely to gain a state Board of Education vote mandating it.
In the meantime, two additional important things are going on. First, they opened vaccination eligibility to all teachers and staff in K-12. Second, Natick launched pooled testing for the district last week. What this is is basically blanket COVID testing for any child whose parents have opted in. Kids are tested in groups of 10, and if a pool comes back positive, then those 10 kids will be individually tested to find out where the positive is. It’s faster and cheaper to do it this way and quite effective. There is state funding for the next 6 weeks to do this, but they send minimal staff and they put out a desperate call for volunteers to help keep the program running as long as necessary. I asked my director if she would mind me helping, since it is during work hours, and she said as long as it didn’t conflict with anything, I could. I signed up, and feel so good about it. I’ll be going into three different elementary schools (starting tomorrow/Monday 3/8) to coordinate nasal swabbing and the general administration/bar coding/etc that goes with all the samples.
This is from the latest newsletter (3 days ago) from Natick Public Schools about it:
Pooled testing is designed to catch any asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic cases. In that vein, I was talking to my friend about it and she was like Oh my gosh, go get the vaccine. I was like, But I’m not a teacher. She said, you are a volunteer (“staff”) and you’re going in to test students. Go get it.
I couldn’t believe it. I woke Jason up. I was elated and actually had trouble going back to sleep. I got an appointment! And for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine which is just one dose!
NILL FAMILY news 