Many New Canaan parents are concerned that some families are undermining efforts to keep the public schools safe by extending their vacations this week instead of learning from home as a post-holiday safeguard against the spread of COVID-19 virus, officials said Thursday. Theoretically, this week of school was designated for district-wide remote learning to give New Canaan families time, after returning from travel, to get tested and for COVID symptoms to surface, according to Health & Human Services Commissioner Alicia Meyer. Yet “unfortunately, a lot of people took it as an opportunity to extend their vacations,” Meyer said during the appointed body’s regular meeting. “At Thanksgiving, New Canaan Public Schools were requiring that kids who travel be tested when they got back to Connecticut, after they travel,” Meyer said during the meeting, held via videoconference. “But now, after Christmas, the requirement is just within the 72 hours of travel, so before they left their destination.”
She continued, “I have been getting a lot of emails from people concerned that kids are still on vacation right now, are going to be tested in Florida or Turks-and-Caicos or wherever they are, another day of vacation, fly home, crowded customs hall, and then roll right back into school, because they were tested before they left the vacation destination.”
“People just are concerned about this,” she added.
