COVID-19 Response

We will focus on conditions in our district.

• We have a set of early warning indicators in our district, and we look to these first to begin assessing conditions.
• Our Rapid Testing Pilot supplements these early indicators, and will help us preemptively identify possible exposures.

COVID-19 rapid testing program: The Tulsa Health Department (THD) and Tulsa Public Schools plan to launch a pilot at schools in November 2020.

• Goals are to reduce infection rates, keep educators in the classroom and guide the district’s decisions to manage in-person instruction in the healthiest and safest way possible.

These testing capabilities will be a valuable resource to help us safely reopen schools and keep them open to in-person instruction. We will:

• Screen teachers and school-based support professionals
• Rotate testing by groups of schools (potentially feeder patterns)
• Leverage Abbott Rapid Antigen Point of Care Test or BD* Veritor System + PCR** (24 hour results) based on availability

We have partnered with the Tulsa Health Department and other researchers to create a data-driven process to assess COVID health conditions for Tulsa Public Schools.

• Early Warning Indicators at TPS Schools
  • These data will help us to monitor conditions that are more localized and specific to our context. These data will help us to be more sensitive to conditions within schools to know if cases are higher or lower than overall county averages. These metrics are:
    • Tulsa Public Schools rapid testing results
    • New case rates for team members and students (TPS contact tracing)
• Foundational School System Metrics
  • These internal data measure our ability to appropriately respond to early warning indicators and enact the necessary safety precautions at our schools. These metrics are
    • Availability of necessary PPE
    • Rates of quarantine
    • Staffing capacity
• Foundational Health Care Metrics
  • These core metrics will help us understand overall rates of community spread. These data will help us to assess overall risk and changes in our greater community that may necessitate a change in our response. The core metrics are:
    • 7-day rolling average of new cases in Tulsa Public Schools boundary (calculated from public data).
    • 7-day rolling average of new cases in Tulsa County

In addition to the above metrics, we will consider variables such as active case rates by zip code, hospitalization rates, test positivity rates, and other data as advised by medical experts and best available research.

The three categories of metrics will be monitored weekly, and if a foundational health care metric hits threshold, or we detect an early warning from one of our indicators, evaluation and discussion.

The frequency of monitoring will increase when metrics are close to thresholds, and or early warning indicators at one or multiple schools are changing.

The approach for weekly assessment anchors on the following:

• Stability of trend creates more stability for our system. We are using multiple weeks trend data minimize abrupt shifts for our students, families, and teachers.
• Triangulation of data brings greater confidence and accuracy. We are assessing Tulsa Public Schools boundary area data and early warning indicators (e.g. rapid testing and 5-17 age group data), Tulsa County data, and then state of Oklahoma data.
• Using additional variables allow us to see the system-as-a-whole. We also monitor active cases, PPE availability, staffing capacity, and hospitalization rates.

Once a full evaluation is triggered based on meeting a threshold condition, we will recommend one of four types of potential actions based on our assessment of the data:

• No changes necessary at this time.
  • Based on current health and systems data, no changes will be made.
• Additional monitoring and through increased, targeted testing.
  • Rapid testing efforts will be scaled up and/or targeted towards particular schools to ensure that potential cases are caught earlier, before widespread exposure or outbreak. Data will be re-examined for the following week.
• Suspend in-person activity at a specific school or multiple schools.
  • If it is necessary to suspend in-person activity at a school, students, families, and staff will be notified shortly after a decision is made. Notices will be sent by 5 a.m. day of, 10 p.m. day before, or 2 p.m. for mid-day.
• Change the default mode of instruction for the entire district.
  • After a full discussion and evaluation is triggered, a formal recommendation will be provided to the Board of Education reporting the suggested default mode of instruction. In emergency situations, the superintendent has the authority to execute individual school or district-wide closures as appropriate.

We will continue to leverage our COVID Exposure Protocol and Contact Tracing to trigger site specific actions to minimize exposure.