Denver Public Schools is still largely planning to have students learn online through mid-October, but a new set of COVID-related metrics is helping the district determine when it will be safe to host in-person classes again, Superintendent Susana Cordova announced Wednesday.
Following guidance from the Metro Partnership for Denver Health, the district is now eyeing three key figures to determine the safety of welcoming students and staff back to school, which are featured on a publicly available dashboard on DPS’ website.
They include:
- The number of COVID-19 cases in Denver County, based on a two-week average per 100,000 residents
- Trends in COVID-19 cases, meaning the degree to which cases are increasing or decreasing in Denver County
- And the test positivity rate — the percentage of COVID-19 tests that come back positive — in Denver County
Each indicator has a threshold to determine whether it’s safe or possibly unsafe to reopen school buildings. Much like the state’s new reopening rubric, the levels are color-coded: green meaning the safest conditions, yellow meaning conditions call for close attention and red meaning possibly unsafe conditions.
For example, a positivity rate below 5% is in the green or safe zone, while above 7% is in the red or unsafe zone.
As of Wednesday, Denver County’s positivity rate and COVID case trends were in the green zones. The number of cases, however, was in the yellow zone.
In a news briefing, Cordova said the metrics do not all need to be in the green zone to warrant reopening. However, “if any single indicator moves to red, that’s a trigger to consider safely being in school with more aggressive measures to contain COVID or if that is a call to move into remote learning,” she said.
Denver Public Schools meets weekly with the health agency to discuss the data, Cordova added.
The current COVID conditions are welcome news considering several in-person programs begin next week. Preschools Escalante-Biggs Academy, Pascual LeDoux Academy, Sandra Todd-Williams Academy and Stephen Knight Center for Early Education open on Sept. 8, followed by all other early childhood education programs in the district on Sept. 14.
Denver Public Schools’ remote learning centers, where students can come to participate in virtual learning with reliable internet access and staff supervision, are also expected to debut after Labor Day.
Details are still being solidified, Cordova said, but the centers are designed to host about 10% of each respective school’s population. They’ll typically target the highest priority students, such as those who don’t have internet at home, those with disabilities, English language learners and elementary students for whom remote learning is a challenge, she said.
Parents should expect to hear from their child’s school soon about whether or not they will be setting up a learning center. Students who attend in-person must wear a mask, will be screened for a fever and other COVID-like symptoms upon arrival, and must abide by hand-washing protocols, Cordova said.
