Moving Ahead

Nashville counted 350 new COVID-19 cases on August 1—the start of this very lengthy month. Pair that with a test positivity rate of 12%+. Those realities defined our decision landscape. Two days ago the new case number clocked in at an applause-inducing 68, paired with a positivity number that had, at long last, dropped below 10%. Those figures bring us in range of what our Medical Advisory Board has been counseling us to see as viable thresholds in our quest to begin getting back on campus together. This progress provides us a reason to be very busy in planning mode—again.

 

Add to that encouraging local data set another even more local opportunity and you’ll see reason for a fact-based optimism about our public health situation. Here’s what happened: a remarkable research team from across 21^st Avenue at Vanderbilt University Medical Center recently offered us the chance to serve as a test site for an especially accurate, same-day response saliva testing technology for COVID-19. At a cost well below other options to the school, they’d provide opt-in participants at USN (students and faculty) barcoded tubes for samples to be left at the door upon entrance on a given day, to generate for us real-time information about the virus here, largely avoiding the frustrating lag times and uncertainties that can pose a risk to our mitigation efforts. I’ll know more next week—please do the thought exercise in advance of gauging your interest in helping.

 

That scientific data set can be a game-changer for us. Having those figures in hand, combined with broader public health progress in our city, opens the door to, well, opening the door. Next, our Division Heads looked to confirm common characteristics of our K-12 strategy. Among them, we

 

In practical terms, those considerations lead us to imagine our youngest students being back first, as has been the case in schools around the world, and to fold them in gradually—to allow for adjustments as we work to be back here in full. The naturally “tight” cohorts of Lower School groupings provide a significant benefit, just as the difficulty of forcing High School students into impervious cohorts makes for the biggest impediment to their easily returning to classes. The list of caveats for those teenagers walking the halls here runs long, as does our list of worries about their off-campus choices. And as for the Middle Schoolers, not surprisingly their situation shares attributes of LS and HS, with room for some unique dimensions as well.

 

To cut to the oft-requested chase, we’re in the process of asking our amazing faculty, now ten days into demonstrating such skill in performing the headstand of remote instruction, to start thinking again (remember June?) about perfecting the handstand of returning to in-person instruction during a pandemic, driven by waning city numbers of new cases. The specifics of how this transition will take place should rightfully come from our dedicated and collegial Division Heads, in consultation with me and with our Medical Advisory Board. Look to their weekly messages, starting with today’s, to frame and explain those processes. And it will be a process, not a grand flip of a grand switch.

 

One last and important note—look for a message about our daily health screener app, developed by the same Magnus Health firm that holds all our students’ essential and confidential health records. Fair warning, you’ll benefit from the how-to video for your first experience, navigating through usn.org to your account to download what you need. When that’s all done, we’ll be able to confirm participation in a flash each morning, and I’ll be able to thank you for doing your part to keep everyone healthy. This is, as we’re reminded daily, a game of inches, and everyone’s choices affect everyone’s outcomes.

 

But really and truly, we are getting there,