With COVID-19 rates on the rise again, “we’re back in that situation where the information keeps flooding in, and changing,” Dunkirk City School District Superintendent Michael Mansfield told the Board of Education this week.

As he has done at virtually every meeting in recent months, Mansfield updated the board on the school district’s efforts to get through the pandemic.

He said the district got its hands on some test kits the Saturday before winter break ended, and quickly set up a pop-up, drive-in event Sunday to distribute them. Some 228 test kits were handed out.

“We got them out as fast as we could,” he said. “It wasn’t as organized as we’d like, but the point was to get it into people’s hands.”

Mansfield said the shortening of the required quarantine period from 10 to five days has really helped in terms of getting students and staff into classrooms.

The superintendent added that staff with two doses of a vaccine — but no booster shot — don’t have to quarantine in case of a close contact anymore. That decision was just made that day, he said. Previously, only people with a booster could avoid the quarantine.

“It’s changing by the moment,” he said.

Mansfield went on to say that a test-to-stay program is still in the works. This would allow students and staff who have had contacts with people who tested positive to stay in school and not quarantine, if they test negative themselves.

He said the district is trying to update its stakeholders on its efforts, but acknowledged the ever-shifting situation makes it challenging.

“We’re trying to get this updated information out … and make it accurate, because it’s very confusing, or can be,” he said.

Mansfield concluded by saying district officials have to look at COVID-19 as a long-term problem. “We’re going to have to think about how to deal with COVID for years to come,” he said.