Close a wing or entire school depending on Covid cases: DoE to Delhi’s private schools

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia Thursday said the government will come out with a common set of guidelines for schools to follow if cases are detected among students. “We are keeping track of all cases in schools and have been giving individual directions to schools where cases have emerged. For the next two-three days, schools have holidays, so I have asked the education department to come out with a common set of guidelines for all schools under the new framework. This should be ready by tomorrow… There is no big outbreak as of now. We are seeing one-two cases in schools. In some cases, it is a student, in others, teachers are testing positive for Covid,” he said.

The DoE advisory, circulated on Thursday and late Wednesday evening, directs the managers and heads of private schools to take all precautionary measures such as masking, sanitisation, distancing and spreading awareness in the light of the increased positivity rate.

“If any Covid case is noticed or reported to the school authority, the same must be intimated to the Directorate of Education immediately, and the wing of the school concerned or the school as a whole, as the case may be, must be closed down for time being,” it states.

With schools operating at full capacity in the offline mode from April 1 onwards, the Covid alarm has been rising with cases being detected among children attending school. For instance, multiple cases have been reported from Delhi Public School Vasant Kunj. A school representative said that so far, there are five confirmed cases among its students and two among its teachers. On Wednesday, the school sent out messages informing parents of the affected sections and asking them to not send their wards to school if they have “any Covid-like symptoms”.

While the government had issued detailed SOPs for schools to follow to maintain Covid protocol in the earlier phases of reopening, with schools going back completely offline, no SOPs have been issued over what they need to do in case cases are detected among teachers and students.

In the absence of protocol, several schools had come up with different ways to address the situation without closing the school.

“We had our own protocol in place. In fact, we have had one class VIII child develop a fever while in school. So, if a child starts showing any symptoms while in school, we have a quarantine zone where the child can be isolated and examined by the school nurse. We contacted and informed the parents and also told them to get the necessary tests done. By the time the parents came, we removed the other children of the section from the area and sanitised the classroom. We had decided that if a child tests positive, we may conduct online classes for two days for the particular section only to see if anyone develops symptoms. The advisory is a good one, we should follow all protocols and can close a particular wing if there are any cases without closing the whole school,” said Sudha Acharya, principal ITL Public School.

Jyoti Arora, principal, Mount Abu Public School, also said she “is not in favour of closing the entire school” and thinks it is more practical to cordon off that particular class or block for a few days.