Happy Wednesday BIS families,

Welcome back! This Friday is Fun Friday: Matching Day at BIS. Students are encouraged to match outfits with their friends and/or teachers.

I want to take a moment to thank you for your partnership and support while we continue to navigate the complexities of COVID and keeping our school safe and open. We continue to be diligent with masks, maintain distance, and clean surfaces as much as possible. Thank you for your ongoing vigilance with screening and communication.

Date Reminders:

• January 14 - Fun Friday! Match Day
• January 17 - No School - MLK Day
• January 18-February 4 - Winter NWEA Testing
• February 2 - Early Release

Sincerely,

Lindsey Nadeau

Biddeford Intermediate School Principal

As expected and noted in Superintendent Ray’s update from last Friday (linked below), we received news today that there have been additional updates to the Maine DOE Standard Operating Procedures. Due to the significant increase in COVID cases throughout Maine and the high transmission of Omicron, it is now presumed that anyone can be a close contact. Therefore, school nurses will no longer be doing extensive contact tracing but rather focusing on communicating to parents for these scenarios:

• Positive Results: Personal phone calls will be made to individuals who test positive in a pool.

• Elementary Schools: An email will be sent if there is an individual who tests positive in your child’s class, as well as a school-wide email at the end of the day.

• Middle and High Schools: Due to students moving throughout the building to change classes, a school-wide email will be sent with the number of positive cases at the end of each day. Athletic team participants will also be notified separately, as needed.

• If you have a specific concern regarding your child, please follow up directly with the School Nurse.

We continue to ask families to please be vigilant in monitoring any symptoms of COVID (linked here) and if your child is not feeling well, they should stay home until COVID can be ruled out. PLEASE REPORT POSITIVE RESULTS, even during Remote Instruction via the Google Forms below or call the school directly. Although individuals who test positive may leave isolation on Day 6, we want to ensure our school community remains healthy. If your child is still not feeling well or if they cannot wear a mask appropriately 100% of the time, please keep your child home and rest assured it is an excused absence.

We appreciate families reporting vaccination information, positive cases, and close contacts during winter break. PLEASE CONTINUE TO REPORT POSITIVE RESULTS via the Google Forms below or call the school directly.

Going forward, an email will be sent informing parents of positive cases and we will continue to make personal phone calls if your child tests positive due to pooled testing. We ask all families to pay close attention to their emails for the possibility of notifications related to their child(ren) and follow the instructions within the email for modified quarantine, symptom monitoring, and testing. If you are not receiving emails from the school, please update your information in Infinite Campus or contact the school directly.