BY TRENTON TIMES STAFF WRITER MIKE DAVIS -- Local officials on Monday night laid out the facts of the case of a 4-year-old Yardville Elementary School preschool student, who died of an unidentified respiratory illness last week.

    At times, the crowd of nearly 100 people, made up of parents from throughout the Hamilton school district, erupted in choruses of criticism. Other times, they politely applauded when discussing the family of the deceased student.

    “This is a heartwrenching time for all of us. Our heart is in the right place with your child. It’s our child as well and we’ll do everything in our power to make sure this school and this community is safe and secure for everyone,” township health officer Jeff Plunkett said. “We’ll leave nothing unturned to do that. Rest assured that when we all put our heads on the pillow at night, it’s still on our minds. It’s not just our job — it’s our home.”

    After a two-hour meeting, mostly made up of a question-and-answer session with Plunkett, school Superintendent James Parla and Yardville Elementary School principal Elena Manning, a few themes have surfaced to the top.
 
•The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is fast-tracking the testing of the student's samples for Enterovirus D-68

    U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-4th Dist.) attended the meeting and informed the audience that the samples obtained from the deceased student were flown to CDC headquarters in Atlanta on Tuesday. Smith said the centers will "expedite" testing the samples, possibly obtaining a result within three days, after speaking with CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden.
 
    "We'll get a confirmation on that very shortly. It will go through the protocol, including the Department of Health at the state level. The moment they get the results, they'll be in touch with the municipality and the school district," Smith said. "We need answers and we need them quickly. This would be a terrible escalation in terms of the concerns for that disease."
 
•Hamilton schools are safe to attend...

    Plunkett and Parla echoed this point many times throughout the evening. The Yardville student died on Thursday, while schools were closed for Rosh Hashanah, but janitors in the building were already on-site as part of a regular maintenance routine, Manning said.

    The next morning, township health officials were at the school sanitizing every surface -- especially doorknobs, counters and frequently touched locations -- and disposing of some classroom materials, including toys that may have been in students' mouths.

    Manning also noted that the school's preschool students are generally isolated from the rest of the school: There are bathrooms in the classroom and the students don't have lunch periods. Even school buses pick preschool students up in a different location from the rest of the students, Manning said.

    "I would bring my child to this school and put him in that preschool classroom tomorrow," school nurse Alison Timmons said.

    Many parents criticized Parla for not closing the school on Friday, as news of the student's death was still traveling through grapevine.

    "How do you send kids into a school when a child died from something and you don’t know the reason?" one mother asked.

    When other parents recommended simply canceling preschool classes, Plunkett quickly dismissed the notion: “There was no feeling whatsoever that it was a prudent idea,” he said.

    "We're not recommending keeping a child home unless you feel they are ill, just as you would between now and June," Plunkett said.
 
•...but students should remain home if they're sick

    The deceased student was kept home from school last Wednesday, with his mother concerned that her son was developing pink eye, Plunkett said. Even if the CDC testing reveals Enterovirus D-68 as the cause of the student's death, parents should still proceed as normal, he said.

    "Nothing changes if this is confirmed (as Enterovirus D-68)," Plunkett said.

    While the schools are clean and safe, it doesn't invalidate basic parenting protocol: “We want your children to be comfortable in school. We wouldn’t have them here if we didn’t feel it was appropriate to have them here,” Parla said.

    The district on Monday also ordered a new monitoring system that will help note student absences when they seem to be related, particular in cases such as infections or viruses, Parla said.
 
•The school district needs to re-evaluate its communication protocols.

  This was the most common complaint of the parents at Monday's meeting: When Plunkett learned about the death of a student on Thursday, word should have immediately gone out to Yardville parents.

    Concerned parents attend a meeting at Yardville Elementary School concerning issues after the death of a 4-year-old preschool student. Hamilton Township health officer Jeff Plunkett is at the microphone.

    "We should have known on Thursday. I don’t want a call from the principal telling me about school spirit day. I want a call telling me there was a death in the school," one parent said.
 
    A recorded phone message was sent out to parents late on Thursday, and a more detailed one on Friday, Manning said. Another recorded message on Monday informed parents of the meeting.

   Parla himself said the district could have done a better job of communicating the situation, even if it meant a phone message stating, "We don't know everything and we're still working." He noted that the district had to walk a "fine line" between information the community deserved to know and privacy of the family.

   “We were really at a loss for a lot of this information. We were trying to balance a lot of sensitivities and what was the right thing to do, given the circumstances,” Parla said.

   Some parents complained that they hadn't received the phone message, including one mother whose address had changed since her students began attending Yardville. While student records are updated annually, the parent recommended fast-tracking new addresses so parents could receive messages quickly.

    In the future, all updates will also be posted on the district and school website, Parla said.
 
•Follow basic hygiene practices.

    While this includes wiping down surfaces such as countertops and doorknobs, for many officials last night it came down to one simple rule: Wash your hands.

    Students and teachers are all educated on the importance of hygiene for the prevention of disease and it will be emphasized even more in the coming days, Manning said.

    "It sounds so simplistic but ... if you do that enough, you're far less likely to contract any virus, including this one," Smith said, relaying his conversation with Frieden.

Original article:
 
http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2014/09/what_we_learned_local_officials_brief_parents_on_death_of_hamilton_preschool_student_which_cdc_is_in.html