McClintock Finds Some COVID Relief Through Contact Tracing

When COVID-19 arrived in the United States, there was very little idea on how to handle it. More than a year and a half later, McClintock High School has learnt that the best way to stop its spread is by contact tracing.

“I think we do a very good job with contact tracing.” Jermaine Whitaker (CQ), athletic director at McClintock said. “Other measures are that we require our kids to wear masks when we’re indoors, we talk to them about being three to six feet apart. But we do contact tracing as anyone, if a kid contracts COVID, we do contact tracing to quarantine and isolate everybody.”

Before the virus, nobody linked those two words together. Now, many officials in different organizations have become experts at it. But how does contact tracing work?

Its key aspect is about learning who might have the virus and stopping them before it spreads wider. For McClintock High School, whenever they learn of a new case of COVID from some of their students, they find out those people who might have been in close contact with them. It is also important to know if they wore a facemask in those times, or if they had any other sort of protection.

Although sometimes learning about that first case might be difficult, it has not been a tough challenge for McClintock’s nurse Beth Marcotte (CQ).

“There are students that come and see me that are symptomatic.” Marcotte said. “They’re sent home and I request a COVID test be done, or quarantine, parents’ choice. If the test result comes positive then I know that way.”

However, many guidelines would suggest that if somebody starts feeling those symptoms, they should not even go to class, so contact tracing needs to be done through other ways.

“We also know by parents calling in to say that their child has either been exposed to COVID or has tested positive.” Marcotte said. “We have students who email teachers to let them know that they tested positive for COVID, and the teachers would then let me know so that I can follow up with the family.”

For McClintock High School, being part of the Tempe Union High School District requires that the guidelines and measures they have to fight COVID-19 have to be the same as the rest of the other schools.

These institutions are Corona del Sol, Desert Vista, Marcos de Niza, McClintock, Mountain Pointe and Tempe High School.

Among these measures, that can be found in the Frequently Asked Questions tab in the Tempe Union High School District website, contact tracing is also the most successful one at Marcos de Niza, according to its school nurse, Karen Allen (CQ).

“I think our methods have been pretty good public health wise.” Allen said. “I think we are doing the right thing with a pretty extensive contact tracing that we do. We do extensive quarantining as well. We’ve attempted to have vaccination clinics on each of our individual campuses during the school day. I feel like we’re doing a very good job at trying to stop the spread of the disease.”

However, although contact tracing has been a popular solution for many high schools in the district, and McClintock in particular, it is not perfect. The Athletic Department had to deal with problems due to a COVID outburst within the football team.

After a rough start of the season, with three straight losses, McClintock obtained their first victory over Tempe High School. However, they could not keep up with the streak, as they had to quarantine because of COVID, and had to forfeit their game against Desert Mountain, which could have increased the Chargers’ chances of postseason, as Donovan Sylvester (CQ), wide receiver for McClintock, states.

“It sucked, because that could have been the game that got us into the playoffs.” Sylvester said. “There’s nothing we can do about it, so we just gotta move on.”

The McClintock Football Team had some issues during the season, one of them the forfeit of their game against Desert Mountain because of the COVID-19 outbreak within the team / Marcos Granda

In this case, Sylvester might have been right, as McClintock finished the season 3-6 overall, and with some teams with losing records in the playoffs, if the Chargers’ managed to beat Desert Mountain, they could have had some chances of playing postseason.

Avoiding these incidents from happening is not an easy task, as contact tracing has some limitations. At the end of the day, this solution is only focused on the aftermath of contracting the virus.

It will prevent some people from being infected with COVID-19, but it will not prevent the initial case to get it, as they will only be dealt with after they tested positive.

It will also be limited to the students’ responsibility. If they do not accept the guidelines of quarantine once they tested positive, or even while they are waiting for the result, they could potentially infect more people with the virus. Without individual responsibility, contact tracing can be less effective.

However, getting games or practices canceled is not the only way in which COVID-19 might affect students. Academics are a big part of high school students' lives, especially those who want to be student athletes at the collegiate level, because they need good grades to make it.

Having to miss 10 days of class because they have been told to quarantine after contact tracing might affect their performance in class.

“I think it’s tough on them (the students)” Marcotte said. “They had a year off where they had to take their classes online, they were very isolated, and I think it’s been reflected in some of the behaviors that we’ve seen on campus right now. I just think it was very tough.”

The biggest positive aspect of having all those measures is that by applying them, life can be as close to normal as it had been before the Pandemic ever started.

“For some kids, they’re fine with our measures, because that means they can be on campus, and we’re having social events, which we couldn’t do last year. All things considered, I think they’re doing pretty good.” Marcotte said.

“It’s kind of annoying, to be honest.” Junior wide receiver Sylvester said. “You have to go out of school for 10 days, it’s harder to do work, to get caught up with homework.”

One of the main challenges for high schools was how to handle contact tracing if the cases started to mount. For instance, both McClintock and Marcos de Niza have more than 1,000 students on campus, and with so many of them meeting after class without any kind of security measure, the chances of contracting the virus are very high.

“Actually, our district was able to hire a full time contact tracer.” Allen, Marcos de Niza nurse said. “So a lot of the burden that the nurses were doing with contact tracing now goes to our official contact tracer. We have so many students, that with our nurses could be seen that it was becoming impossible to contact trace and see everyone who came to our office.”

In the last update from the Tempe Union High School District, which dates from Nov. 8, there were 52 confirmed cases for COVID-19, with most of them happening at Corona del Sol and Desert Vista. Those 52 cases meant contact tracing the closest people around them, which makes the number too big for nurses to carry that burden.

Although contact tracing has been proven as an effective method to stop the spread of the virus in these high schools, sometimes preventative measures are as important, and among them is the necessity of being at least six feet away from each other and mask wearing.

To ensure these students comply with the rules, it has to be the authority figures who insist on them.

“When we’re out on the football field or at practice we don’t have to wear a mask, so the coaches don’t get a lot into that stuff.” Sylvester said. “The teachers are very strict on it, they make sure you have your mask on.”

The COVID-19 pandemic caught everybody by surprise. Learning how to deal with it has not been an easy task, but every academic institution has developed their own protocols. If contact tracing is the best measure to stop the spread of the virus is something that could be discussed, but school officials in the Tempe Union High School District agree it is the most effective way.

Its biggest benefit is that once the cases are located, they can be isolated before they spread it everywhere, and that is why it is instrumental that the protocol is respected.