Johnston High hosts vaccination clinic

Johnston High School will host a vaccination clinic today, May 7, aimed at inoculating students 16 to 18 years old.

Superintendent of Schools Bernard DiLullo didn’t have official signup numbers when he spoke to the Sun Rise earlier this week, but he said turnout was low thus far. DiLullo sent out a notice to families in the district with registration information.

He said that he spoke with the Rhode Island Department of Health last week and learned that case numbers for children continue to climb while adult figures are still declining. According to the state’s COVID-19 information portal, the Johnston schools – the Early Childhood Center, Graniteville School and Sarah Dyer Barnes Elementary School – have seen zero new positive results in the past week as of April 28. The rest – Brown Avenue Elementary, Johnston High School, Nicholas A. Ferri Middle School, Thornton Elementary and Winsor Hill Elementary — have seen fewer than five. There have been zero new staff cases in the past week at all Johnston learning institutions.

As far as distance learners, only JHS and Ferri have seen fewer than five positive cases in the past week, while all other schools are at zero.

“So as of today, we’re back in school five days a week, grades pre-K through 8, everybody’s back five days. The high school, while they’re on a five-day schedule, they are still on the hybrid model,” DiLullo said. “Basically it’s either two or three days a week depending on the week … It’s pretty much the same process that we’ve been doing all year [if someone tests positive] – we do contact tracing, 6-foot radius around the infected child, and anyone who’s within 6 feet for more than 15 minutes is identified as a close contact and has to isolate.”

DiLullo said there was massive uptake in vaccinations by Johnston teachers, most of whom received their shots either at the Johnston Recreation Center pod or CVS and Walgreens. He said that most of the teachers who were still out of the classroom because of high-risk conditions have returned, allaying any potential teacher shortages the district could have faced.

“Most of the teachers who were out because of vulnerabilities have returned to school, which is a great thing. It’s good to have them in the classroom,” DiLullo said. “The fact that most of our classrooms have their regular teacher back, that’s kind of freed up substitutes for the day-to-day absences when someone is sick or someone has a personal day, that kind of thing.”

Distance learners returned during a few days in April for Rhode Island Common Assessment System, or RICAS, testing. DiLullo said there was better turnout at the elementary schools than at Ferri, but he believed it was a “good approach in terms of keeping everybody safe.”

“I think the benefit of the testing for the spring is to determine how distance learning was effective, I think that’s what we’re going to see,” DiLullo said. “We’ll be able to determine how kids did primarily when they were in school full-time and how kids performed on the testing when on the distance learning model. So we’ll be able to do those comparisons in terms of looking at the kids who were in the classroom as opposed to kids who were distance learning. Other than that, I don’t think most kids in the state are going to fare as well as if it they were in school full-time.”

As the school year winds down, DiLullo said the district is planning an outdoor graduation in June at the JHS athletic complex. He expects the pre-ceremony parade to begin at North Woods – where last year’s celebration ended and the taped graduation was played – and continue down Atwood Avenue to the high school.

With guidelines allowing for larger gatherings at outdoor venues, he expects more than 400 people to attend.

“So, because those numbers went up substantially in terms of what’s allowed, we’re renting chairs so we can socially distance people on the athletic field,” DiLullo said. “We have approximately 200 graduates, and we’re anticipating at least both parents will attend that, so we’re looking at approximately 450 in attendance, depending on how those numbers play out over the next month.”