The Sidwell Friends School’s Medical Advisory Team rivals teams working at the city and state levels.

Moving to a full hybrid plan at Sidwell Friends was not a decision the School came to lightly. The Sidwell Friends Medical Advisory Team (MAT)—comprising parents, trustees, and alumni with deep experience in medicine, epidemiology, and pandemic response—scoured the data to inform the School’s approach. The MAT was instrumental in setting the metrics for the 2020/21 School Plan, which determined how and when to shift from distance to hybrid learning and vice versa. The School is also monitoring the area's positivity rates daily and will consult with the MAT if Sidwell Friends has to return to distance learning. To help the community understand MAT thinking, Director of Health Services Jasmin Whitfield hosted several all-School conversations to introduce the MAT members and let them answer questions about the science behind the hybrid plan.*

To give context as to how far the region has come since its peak, Steve Evans (P ’24), the chief medical officer at MedStar Health, explained the DC area’s journey. “In April and May, the average positive testing exceeded 20 percent,” he said. “We are down now to well underneath 5 percent, hovering at 2 to 3 percent.”* That’s why maintaining a seemingly conservative 2 percent threshold of new cases at Sidwell Friends is relevant: Keeping community transmission down is critical because it reflects the community’s COVID-19 practices. “The health departments really want those numbers to be around 2 to 3 percent,” said Amanda Castel ’91, an epidemiologist at the George Washington University School of Public Health, who has been working on the COVID-19 response since mid-March. 

“If you look at the baseline surveillance testing that’s been taking place in our School community, it’s less than 1 percent.”

Raj Shah (P ’24, ’27, ’29), the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, broke down those numbers further. “The background-risk math and what we’ve seen in about 1,100 schools that are open in the United States over the past six weeks is that the average COVID-19 rate is about one positive kid per 1,000 over a two-week period,” he said.“That’s really very, very low. Frankly, when you layer on the effectiveness of the risk-mitigation strategies we have in place, that presents an exceedingly low risk for our students and, importantly, for faculty in that environment.” Shah added that he is completely comfortable with his own three children attending School in the hybrid model.

Not only do Sidwell Friends students have a low risk of contracting coronavirus; there are real consequences to staying isolated. “A few things are more pronounced in kids in this distance-learning COVID model and way of life, including loneliness, boredom, anxiety, sleep problems, eating disorders, and decreased physical activity,” says Ali Mohamadi ’94, a pediatric endocrinologist. “That’s validated by data, experience, and expert counsel from around the country. The fact that we have onsite testing, can handle an expedited contact-tracing process, and can enable faculty to just have more confidence is extraordinary. It’s a risk-protection strategy that most places in America don’t have.”

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Meet the Whole Team

AMANDA CASTEL ’91 (P '21, '24) serves as professor of epidemiology at the George Washington University School of Public Health.

STEVE EVANS (P ’24) is chief medical officer and executive vice president for medical affairs at MedStar Health. Governor Larry Hogan appointed him to serve on the state of Maryland’s Coronavirus Response Team.

WAYNE A.I. FREDERICK (P ’24) is the 17th president of Howard University. At Howard, he has served as the College of Medicine associate dean, Department of Surgery division chief, Cancer Center director, and Health Sciences deputy provost.

PEGGY HAMBURG (P ’11, ’13) served as the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s president and board chair, as the National Academy of Medicine’s foreign secretary, and as the 21st commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

ALI MOHAMADI ’94 (P ’23, ’26) is a pediatric endocrinologist and executive director of global patient advocacy and engagement at BioMarin Pharmaceutical, which develops medications for rare and life-threatening conditions.

CYNTHIA OGDEN (P ’15, ’18) is an epidemiologist. She leads a team of medical and research epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CHANNING PALLER ’97 is a translational researcher and associate professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins, where she both treats patients and researches more effective and less toxic therapies forprostate cancer and other solid tumors.

RAJ SHAH (P ’24, ’27, ’29) is president of the Rockefeller Foundation, which has published a number of reports on pandemic response and recovery and has counseled cities and states on pandemics.

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Well Wishes

Be SidWELL is an awareness campaign to keep simple, personal actions at the center of community health. One of the most critical changes the School community can make is to shift personal behaviors and habits—on and off campus. Students started to return to campus at a time of great unknowns, and, for many, that may have produced some level of anxiety about things like what it might feel like to be tested repeatedly or to wear a mask all day. With students ranging in age from 4 to 18 years old, Sidwell Friends needed a simple, visual language that would be instantly recognizable, so students and adults alike could keep the community safe by remembering the four W’s: Wash hands, Wear masks, Watch your distance, and Watch your words—and. Thanks to a little masked fox, they're doing just that. #BeSidWELL

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*Since publishing the original article in fall 2020, pandemic conditions changed after the first hybrid program, causing a sharp increase in local area positivity rates during winter break. As the public health situation continues to change, the latest measures or updates to the School's response can be found here.