From GREGORY FROSTAD
Safe and Healthy Schools Director
New Mexico Public Education Department

Editor’s note: This is a response to a column by Richard Skolnik of Los Alamos published Jan. 4, 2022 in the Los Alamos Daily Post (link).

Mr. Skolnik,

Thank you for your continued engagement with, and concern for, the health of New Mexico students and staff.

As has happened throughout the pandemic, the Public Education Department (PED) will update statewide guidance based on new information from the CDC; however, the PED is not waiting on the CDC to update guidance in preparation for the Omicron variant.

Current PED guidance accounts for increases in school positivity rates that schools may see in upcoming weeks and months. Schools have submitted enhanced COVID-safe practices (CSPs) plans that specify the additional CSPs that schools will implement in the case of increasing case counts.

Daily, the PED monitors the percentage of infectious while on campus COVID cases at each school campus and notifies any school that crosses the 3%, or 5% threshold over the past 14 days. At 3% it is recommended that schools implement their enhanced CSP plans. At 5%, it is required that a school implement its enhanced CSP plan.

The enhanced CSP plans include the following CSPs and many more that schools select based on the appropriateness of the CSP to their circumstances:

• Requiring children to eat in their classrooms if they cannot eat outside;
• Prohibiting large gatherings;
• Prohibiting visitors; and
• Hosting vaccination events.

As regards testing, schools tested more than 25,000 students and staff in December and the PED and Department of Health (DOH) anticipate significantly higher testing numbers in January. COVID testing in New Mexico schools has not faced the supply shortages that are occurring in the rest of the country.

New Mexico was a pilot for the CDC’s test to stay program, which has greatly increased testing numbers and allowed for New Mexico students to stay in school safely. In alignment with US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, the PED will continue to take novel efforts to keep all New Mexico schools open, safely, five-days a week.

With support from the DOH and PED COVID response teams, and through perseverance and adaptability, schools across the state have become well equipped to manage student learning through the pandemic.

Sincerely,

Greg