Despite University Prep’s decision not to offer online classes during the 2021-2022 school year, the sixth-grade class spent their third week of the year learning virtually after two sixth-graders tested positive for COVID-19.

Typically, if students test positive or are exposed to COVID-19 they must quarantine and are expected to keep up with their school work through individual communication with their teachers. However, in the case of the sixth grade, UPrep’s administration, in conjunction with UPrep’s COVID-19 Task Force, made an exception following multiple positive cases in the same grade. 

“We weren’t sure we could fully track the contact tracing component of it, and so we wanted to take a pause to have everyone get tested so we could take stock of the situation,” Co-Chair of UPrep’s COVID-19 Task Force Brian Gonzales said. 

Juli Cook, sixth-grader Zander Cook’s mother, is pleased with how UPrep handled COVID-19 requirements.

“At some point, we as parents have to weigh the risk and reward of keeping our kids in the bubble versus sending them to school,” Cook said. “I feel really good about what UPrep is doing to keep him safe. I feel like they are doing an incredible job to lower the probabilities of Zander getting sick.”

Cook is currently unvaccinated due to the age restriction for the COVID-19 vaccine. 

“I feel pretty comfortable basically all the time because we have masks and everybody is wearing [their] mask,” Zander Cook said.

According to Gonzales, the largest difference between the rules for sixth-grade compared to the Upper School is contact tracing. Tracking strategies include seating charts and stricter restrictions on movement. 

“Because we’re a school that has mixed classes with sixth, seventh and eighth graders, because we have a community where Middle Schoolers and Upper Schoolers cross paths every single day, it’s really about the entire community doing everything that we can to look after our unvaccinated population,” Gonzales said. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the COVID-19 vaccine is between 88 and 93 percent effective, meaning vaccinated individuals are still able to test positive for COVID-19.

“We still have people that are immunocompromised in this building and we still have people who have children at home who are unvaccinated, so everybody has their own concerns,” Gonzales said.

Additionally, there are also students with vaccine exemptions in the Upper School. 

“We’ve announced that all unvaccinated students need to be tested on a weekly basis,” Gonzales said. “We don’t limit their access to programming, we don’t limit their access to class or anything, but we do require that weekly COVID-19 test.”

Mandatory testing and other policies such as mask requirements and social distancing precautions are in place to reduce the risk of students having to temporarily move to online school.

“Can it happen again if we feel like we need to do it for the safety of the community? Yeah, we might have to do that again,” Gonzales said. “But at the same time, it’s not something we were super excited to do because it disrupts learning and we know that it’s hard on families. So we’re going to try and avoid it at all costs.”