School not telling teachers Covid status

[Lovebeingmama]

Hi,
I received a message approx a week ago from the school saying that a particular teacher was self isolating due to being in close contact with someone who had tested positive for Covid. There was no mention of this teacher getting tested for Covid and since we were informed no confirmation of a positive or negative result.
We have only been told that the teacher is feeling well still and has no symptoms, that is it. As you can be asymptomatic, I know this doesn’t automatically mean that the teacher is negative.
My son has had direct contact with this teacher and I work with vulnerable people, so it’s important for me to know. The school won’t divulge the covid status (or even if there has been a test) as they say it is personal information.
I don’t care about the individual status of the teacher, just about our exposure to risk. The school decided to tell us about the individual teacher involved.
I feel this is unfair - aibu?

some teachers have been told to turn off the app and ignore positive contact results on the app

Because the Bluetooth can’t distinguish between different rooms or floors. Schools and teachers know who they’ve been in contact with better than the technology.

Yanbu. At our school even staff were in the dark as to which staff had contacted it. A huge veil of secrecy.

@JeanClaudeVanDammit
You say that, but plenty of people find it very difficult to judge 2m distance. I know colleagues who would swear that they socially distance at all times but it just isn’t true, even though people are really trying to they slip up, they forget, they underestimate how far 2m is. The kind of school that makes you delete the app because you’ve been contact traced is also the kind of place to make you feel pressured to say that you’d not been closer than 2m to the student or staff member, even if you had.
Any normal state secondary school that claims that their teachers are 2m away from their students at all times is lying. In lots of classrooms in my school there is only about 1.5m between the front row and the front wall of the classroom. Seeing as teachers can’t melt into the wall and don’t generally stand with their backs pressed against it, they are a lot closer than 2m and if a child in the front row or even second row tests positive then the teacher should SI. Some schools with the same set up are pressurising teachers to say that they stayed further than 2m away because if they didn’t they are in trouble for breaking a policy that it is impossible to comply with.

But it still stands that the app is absolutely not designed for use in a school. It’s primarily for tracking contact between strangers who would have no other means to know, in discrete venues.

I’m sure some schools may not be doing things properly, but I’ve also seen first hand the amount of effort that’s going into trying to track down who someone has been in contact with when there’s been a case in a school, and it’s a lot more nuanced than the app would be.

Anyway, this is irrelevant to the OP, but just wanted to make the point that’s it’s not always a big conspiracy, sometimes there’s a good reason behind a decision.

That’s just not true. There are only 3 circumstances where you are advised not to use the app. When your phone is not on your person, when you are working in a healthcare setting in full PPE, or when you are working behind a plexiglass or plastic screen. The thing about floors and walls is also not true, obstructions like a wall or floor/ceiling weaken the signal and make it appear to have come from further away. Unless you have left two phones directly either side of a wall the chances of it registering as less than 2m apart are very slim. The chances of it incorrectly registering two people in different rooms as close contacts is negligible. In fact, it’s more likely to miss close contacts due to obstructions (Like a desk if your phone is in a trouser pocket) making people appear further apart than they really were.

YABU and YABVVVU to take your whole family for a test!

Teacher has no symptoms so shouldn’t get a test just self isolate as a close contact

None of your family have symptoms so shouldn’t get a test. If teacher goes on to develop symptoms then your son should isolate. If he develops symptoms he gets tested and you all self isolate

Entire families getting testing for no good reason is why people with symptoms can’t get tests! Don’t be so bloody irresponsible and selfish.

Because the Bluetooth can’t distinguish between different rooms or floors. Schools and teachers know who they’ve been in contact with better than the technology
I agree.
My school are better placed to comment on my interaction with students than an app running on Bluetooth.

If I'm on break duty then lots of students would walk past me, but none of them would hit the criteria for being a contact.

If individual members of staff are incapable of managing to keep their distance without good reason then the school should be speaking to them directly. I'm not sure the app running in school would solve that.

Teachers done even get told if someone in their class tests positive if they are deemed more than 2m away. Clinically vulnerable friend is considering handing her notice in as she won’t get told if it happens.

@Lovebeingmama

Think I’ll have to take all the family for a test. The teacher is young and fit, it is perfectly possible that she could be positive and not showing symptoms. Unfortunately the people I work directly with are far more vulnerable.

Why do you think this? You should only have a test if showing symptoms. All you will achieve by doing this is wasting resources. You have no right to be told anything about a persons medical information, covid or otherwise. If your son is identified of a close contact within the correct timescales then you will be contacted in the appropriate way.

Lola- a student just walking past you would not trigger an alert on the app. For a start people under the age of 16 can’t use the app. In addition to that, the app uses distance and duration to decide what is a close contact. Unless a child of 16 or over stood closer than 2m to you for 15 minutes while you are on break duty then the app wouldn’t trigger a self isolation alert. People not understanding how the app actually works are undermining what is actually a really valuable public health tool.

MadameMinimes
We are an 11-18 school.

My knowledge of technology isn't brilliant, but can the app seriously tell the difference between me standing on the ground floor of a block and a student walking past me to a lesson/social area on the next floor up?

SunShinesAutumn
That's awful. We get told when there is a positive case and get told to inform our head of we've been under 2m away because some of our classrooms don't allow us to be more than 2m from the front row (or 2!) of students.

Lola- yes! It isn’t based on a gps-style location . It’s done on strength of Bluetooth signal. A student or staff member a floor away, or in the next room may be within 2m of you but the barrier of the floor/ceiling will weaken the signal and make it appear further away to your phone. The app also keeps track of how long your phone was within 2m distance. Momentarily passing close to someone would not lead the app to tell you to self isolate. It’s really important that people understand how the app works as it is a really important tool and the more people use it the better. School management teams (and businesses/employers) discouraging use based on their own weak understanding of how it works are being deeply irresponsible.

@Lovebeingmama
Think I’ll have to take all the family for a test. The teacher is young and fit, it is perfectly possible that she could be positive and not showing symptoms.
FFS, massive over-reaction and people like you are the reason that people WITH symptoms can’t get tests. The teacher is following Government guidance in self-isolating as she has been identified as someone who has been in contact with a positive test. She is correctly not getting tested as that is what is advised. She has no symptoms, is not self isolating because she’s positive, so there is absolutely NO need for you and your family to get tested. You are being absolutely ridiculous.

MadameMinimes
That's interesting, thank you for explaining.

We don't tend to carry our phones with us at work anyway so it's not especially relevant to me. Mine stays locked in my desk drawer other than my breaks if I've got time to get back to my actual classroom (we're currently moving around so students can be bubbled).

The teacher probably hasn't had a test so there will be nothing to tell. You are being ridiculous.

A huge veil of secrecy.

Where's the secrecy in the OP?
Op has been told the teacher is absent due to SI, because of a possible close contact exposure.

There's nothing else to say.
Teacher won't have a test unless they develop symptoms.
Unless the teacher subsequently gets symptoms and tests positive the OP will not need to hear more - and even then only if their child becomes a possible close contact within the right time frame, which is quite unlikely based on the time frames.

Schools and other workplaces sometimes advise teachers /workers to turn off the app when their phone is not with them all the time ie left in a locker, desk drawer etc as it would register close phone contact not necessarily close people contact. A school will go through a risk assessment with PHE anyway to determine close contacts

Lovebeingmama
Instead of worrying what the school staff are doing under advice taken I would ask what are you and your employer doing to protect the vulnerable people you work with?

@Jeremyironseverything

Yanbu. At our school even staff were in the dark as to which staff had contacted it. A huge veil of secrecy.

Unlike OP's school then, which seems to have gone above and beyond here, yet still OP demands more on this poor teacher's life.

When my son isolated after being in close contact with an infected student (so the equivalent of this teacher) we did not insist on tests for him, a contact, or for ourselves as the contact of a contact (which is what OP is proposing!). Aside from the selfishness of depriving others of a test, why would you put everybody through the process of testing? It's not pleasant.

@Lovebeingmama

Think I’ll have to take all the family for a test. The teacher is young and fit, it is perfectly possible that she could be positive and not showing symptoms. Unfortunately the people I work directly with are far more vulnerable.

Please don't waste valuable resources needlessly.

Take a test if - and only if - you have symptoms. FGS.

@Lovebeingmama It may have been mentioned as I have not rtft, but you wont most likely be able to get a test 'juts in case' if you have no symptoms as there is such a shortage of tests. My child had symptoms and there have been no tests for us over the period of the last two weeks.

the people I work directly with are far more vulnerable

Then you - with your employers - should be risk assessing your working practices and conditions, to ensure safety of those you work with.

You have no right to a teacher's personal information.

If the teacher has tested positive Public Health will be notified. They advise each school to ensure correct procedures are followed and even provide master letters for schools to send out to parents advising them of what to do. All information on any person involved is strictly confidential and this person would not be identified or their medical status shared.

If you've not had a letter giving you instructions to follow it is because there is no need.