P-J photo by Katrina Fuller

After an initially lukewarm response from the state Health Department, Gov. Kathy Hochul is backing the use of COVID-19 test-to-stay protocols for schools.

“Let me repeat that — we are keeping schools open because we’re dealing with a very different variant at this time,” Hochul said during a press event Monday. “We believe that it’s critically important that our children not end up in that same situation they were for so many months, when they were so displaced from their normal environment, they did not get the quality of education, despite the best efforts of those incredible teachers and parents who struggled every single day alongside their children, just to deal with these circumstances we dealt with last time. We’re in a different environment, a different circumstance.”

Hochul’s stance is a reversal from the state Health Department’s late October guidance that counties could pursue test-to-stay protocols even though the state wasn’t directly recommending it.

One of the problems with implementing test-to-stay protocols has been the availability of tests locally and staff available to administer the tests. County officials did shorten the quarantine time for children who don’t show symptoms of COVID, meaning children can return to school after missing eight days instead of 11.

On Monday, Hochul said the state has ordered two million tests that will be sent to schools statewide for use when children return from Christmas vacation on Jan. 3.

“And here’s what we want to have happen,” Hochul said. “Children are in a classroom, someone tests positive. Ordinarily, they would have been sent home for a long period of time. And then even if someone — they go back — someone tests positive again, the next week they’re sent home again. This is so disruptive to their education, as well as the parents, who’ve been desperately trying to get back to a normal life, get back to their jobs. And the lack of child care has been, just another area of friction for these families that have been really hit so hard. So, we’ll be making sure that there’s, in their backpacks, they will be sent home with testing kits. Children test positive, we know it, someone in the classroom, the kids in the classroom will be sent home with testing kits. So, we’re working on that supply chain right now. So starting in early January, we will be able to address that. So there’s no reason why our children can’t stay in school.”