The mother of a Chicago Public School student at Jensen Elementary has died after battling COVID-19, according to her family, while hundreds of students, including her own, have been quarantined for exposure to multiple confirmed cases of the virus School.
Criticized by the Chicago Teachers Union and some parents for its safety plan when it reopened this fall, the district has claimed there had been few, if any, transmissions of the virus in school since the pandemic began and denied again on Monday to find evidence that the eight cases at Jensen were passed on to others in the building or home.
Before she died late last week, Shenitha “Angel” Curry – described by the family as “alive and outspoken” – said she was frustrated and angry with the school system’s COVID-19 logs, particularly the contract tracking program, for which she never reached out became an interview. Curry’s sister said Monday that Curry, who was unvaccinated, had told her in her final days that she was sure her illness came from school. Curry’s 44th birthday would have been later this week.
Jensen’s fear was already high before teachers and union organizers’ parents learned of Curry’s death while taking their children to school on Monday. In the past two weeks, 205 students have been sent home after being identified as close contacts with at least one in eight children or educators who contracted the virus, according to the district. This meant that 11 of the school’s 17 classrooms were in quarantine, with eight classes expected to return from their two-week distance learning phase on Monday. Lawndale School has 297 students enrolled, most of whom are too young to be vaccinated.
Curry’s 5th grade daughter was one of the children scheduled to isolate and return this week, but she is staying home after her mother died Thursday. Curry also has a son in high school.
CPS officials emailed the Jensen Congregation on Sunday evening that they were “saddened by the devastating effects of COVID-19 on our community and understand the fear and concern you must feel about this tragedy.”
The district did not mention Curry’s death in the message, and spokeswoman Catherine Hosinski said in an email Monday that CPS “is unable to approve or reject reports of health concerns related to our students and their family members due to federal privacy laws” .
She added that the Chicago Department of Health “is continuing to review the situation, but at this point and based on the information available, including timing of symptoms, test dates, and known exposures outside of school, there is no evidence” that each of the eight Jensen cases were broadcast at the school.
County officials visited the school Monday and said they would offer tests in the school starting Tuesday through Lurie Children’s Hospital. No tests have been carried out at Jensen this school year.
A Cook County coroner spokeswoman said the office had not yet received news of Curry’s death from the hospital she was admitted to, West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, so an official cause of death has not yet been established.
Jensen teachers and staff wore Black Monday and laid roses in front of the school to commemorate Curry’s death and another mother they said died on Friday. No details were released about this mother or her cause of death.
Postal code 60644, where Curry lived, is one of the five lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates in the city at 48%, city data shows. Curry herself had a vaccination delay for various reasons and hadn’t received a vaccination despite underlying illnesses, her sister said.
In a Facebook post on September 16, Curry wrote that she had received an email for the first time that her daughter was in close proximity to someone who tested positive for COVID-19 and needed to be quarantined. She said she was then sent a text message stating that her contact tracing was over and her daughter’s class would be returning to school that Monday.
“Somebody please explain to me how the contact tracing is carried out,” wrote Curry, saying that no one “called my phone to see if we were sick here.” At this point in time, it said in her post, she and her daughter had been sick for a few days, although her daughter was better. In response to a friend’s comment on her post, Curry said she could “barely go to the bathroom” because she was so sick.
In an interview on Monday, Curry’s sister Jasyma Johnson said Curry went to the emergency room the day she made that Facebook post and she was discharged that night. After several days of battling the virus, Curry suffered cardiac arrest that Sunday and was sent to intensive care, where she stayed until her death on Thursday.
Johnson said her sister strictly followed pandemic containment protocols, only leaving her home when necessary and always wearing a mask, cleaning her hands and disinfecting surfaces. She wanted her children to study remotely this fall, Johnson said.
“She was just really pissed off that she had to send her kids to school because she felt like she knew she was going to be the one to get sick. And here it is. She got sick and she didn’t hit it. “
Meanwhile, other parents at school said Monday they were concerned about their children’s health.
Latrice Jackson, who has two sons and a daughter at Jensen, was outside Jensen in the afternoon picking up her sons from school. Jackson’s daughter, meanwhile, has been in quarantine for nearly two weeks from exposure to a confirmed case and is in a classroom slated to return on Wednesday. During this time she learned virtually.
“I was a little [nervous] but it seemed like they had everything together in terms of safety, ”Jackson said of her children’s return to school this fall. “But it doesn’t look like that anymore. … It is ridiculous. My children are going home. “
Jackson said she thinks the entire school should be closed for two weeks for cleaning and quarantine. She wasn’t sure if she would send her daughter back this week when her quarantine period is over.
“I don’t think it’s safe,” said Jackson.
Contribute: Brett Chase
source https://www.bisayanews.com/2021/09/28/cps-mom-dies-after-her-child-exposed-to-covid-19-at-school-where-hundreds-of-kids-quarantined/
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