When Aurora schools decided to shorten their quarantine period to five days, aligning with new state and federal guidelines, school nurses found out almost at the same time that families did.

Nurses didn’t have time to provide input into how the rule would be rolled out in their schools. Now, they say, each school has to figure out how to deal with the required precautions when students come back on Day 6 and may still be contagious.

“This might be the most complicated guidance we’ve endured. We had no time to absorb data,” said Jennifer Barnes, an Aurora school nurse.

Tiffany Curtice, another Aurora school nurse, said it makes her feel unvalued.

“Our knowledge and experience and education has not been valued and or listened to, in my opinion,” Curtice said.

Several school nurses spoke to the Aurora school board last week because they said the district is not hearing or heeding their voice. They say that is making their jobs more difficult at a time when their workload has already multiplied.

District officials say their process provides multiple ways for nurses to provide input. And officials insist that they are following all of the guidance from Tri-County public health to ensure schools can be safe places for students.

“I absolutely get it, this has been very hard on our nurses, on our teachers, on everyone in the district,” said Mark Seglem, the Aurora district’s chief of staff. “Our No. 1 goal is to keep our kids in the classroom safely.”

Across the state, some districts including the Jeffco school district are no longer tracing contacts of each positive case, and have told families they may not get exposure notifications.

In a statement, Mellissa Sager, the policy and public affairs officer for the TriCounty Health Department, said that even when districts aren’t able to identify all close contacts, other mitigation measures still work to keep students safe.

“Just like health departments across the country, as cases surge, schools must triage their COVID-19 response activities and may not have the capacity to identify all potential close contacts,” Sager’s statement read. “TCHD is confident that our schools’ layered mitigation strategies continue to reduce risk in the classroom and TCHD continues to work with school leaders to work through any higher-risk situations in schools, like outbreaks.”

Read the full article about school nurses by Yesenia Robles at Chalkbeat Colorado.