BUHLER — The situation regarding testing capacity has improved enough for Buhler USD 313 to change some of its policy regarding Prairie Hills Middle School.
According to a Facebook message from USD 313 Superintendent Cindy Couchman Thursday, all PHMS students who had to quarantine due to a lack of test capacity are allowed to join the tested group as of Friday, October 8th.
The case count at Prairie Hills is at 16 as of Thursday afternoon. Facemasks will still be required next week.
Couchman explained the process for an individual positive in the message:
1. Positive case is called in or individual tests positive at school.
2. Admin pulls the positive case’s class schedule.
3. Each teacher is contacted for the seating chart for those designated hours.
4. Admin checks for 6 foot radius (or 3 feet this week) to identify close contacts.
5. Close contacts are listed out. This is usually around 20 students, but this week because of masks, it has been only about 4 students.
6. Each close contact’s schedule is called up, and passes are written to pull those students to the office.
7. Each close contact is then searched for on the master list to see what option the parent has chosen in the event of exposure.
8. If the parent hasn’t filled out the option form, the parent number is looked up on Powerschool and phone calls must be made to get the form completed.
9. Parents are then called for those who choose to quarantine.
10. Those who choose to test are then entered into the Stay to Learn protocols.
11. Student names, testing dates, and date of return to school are entered into a Google sheet for nurses to track.
12. RCHD is notified of close contacts/positives and contact information is sent to RCHD for their records.
13. Data is then uploaded into the KDHE portal for each test given.
14. If the positive student is a bus rider, another process begins to determine the dates the bus was ridden, the other students who were riding, and the seating chart for that specific bus.
15. Close contacts again are looked up, parents called, etc.
If the positive student is out for a sport, the same process is repeated again for close contacts.
If students do a PCR test, that test is then driven to Wichita each day by district office staff right after lunch.
Having so many positives in a couple days quickly became unmanageable, according to Couchman.
"Because we could narrow the close contacts down to three feet by wearing facemasks, we are able to once again resume Stay to Learn, and we hope to see positive cases starting to stabilize next week," Couchman said. "Our goal is to keep students in school, and Stay to Learn helps us do exactly that. It is through working together that we are able to resume it so quickly. We are relentlessly looking at every option to keep kids in school."