From the Director of Schools
As promised, the purpose of this update is to establish our schedule for traditional learners over the next two-week period. We appreciate that the staggered attendance model is different from how most families hoped to start the school year, but we are so proud of the way students have cooperated with school administrators and teachers to embrace the new COVID protocols. We are encouraged by the COVID statistics that have continued to show improvement in our community over the last two weeks. We are also proud of the way everyone continues to embrace change as a part of our day-to-day lives. Thank you for all you are doing at home to support our schools during this challenging and constantly changing time.
ILLNESS:
Before moving our attention to the new schedule, please allow me to appeal to parents and guardians about sickness. We are finding the vast majority of reported symptoms of illness in our schools turn out to be non-COVID related. The issue, during this pandemic, is that we must treat all students according to our protocols under COVID, so these non-COVID related illnesses can end up presenting even greater scheduling challenges to families. What might normally be a one day issue turns out to be a problem for 10-14 days.
Should your child develop any COVID-like symptoms, please keep your child at home and follow the steps shared last week on the decision tree (LINK HERE):
- Notify your child's school
- Consult your healthcare provider
- Isolate the child at home for 10 days from the onset of the symptoms
- The period of isolation can be reduced by doing one of the following:
------------Child has documentation of a negative COVID-19 test after the onset of symptoms with no fever and improvement in symptoms for 72 hours.
- Child must check-in with school nurse upon returning to school
The single best thing you can do to contribute to the health and safety of all students and staff is to keep your student at home when he or she is unwell.
COVID UPDATE:
While we have decision trees, notification letters, and a district Response Plan, we have learned there are mitigating factors in making responsive decisions. It is often a judgment call. We have also developed a full appreciation for the vague and complex nature of the symptoms for COVID-19. The comprehensive list of symptoms is daily occurring in our classrooms through sinus infections, seasonal allergies, stomach viruses, strep throat, back-to-school jitters, COVID anxiety, etc.
Our school nurses are working with students and families, trying to determine the level of symptoms. While we do not want to be over-reactive, we feel we must label a student as potential, COVID symptomatic if they show a combination of symptoms, resulting in a 10-day isolation notice. To date, almost all of our students who have been sent home from school with any COVID-like symptoms, have all received negative results. We are so grateful for this trend. Nonetheless, we know the 10-day isolation for symptoms adds annoyance and challenges to the lives of families.
Based on our early observations and school statistics, we are keenly aware the likelihood of COVID symptom(s) being daily demonstrated in our classrooms and will only increase with the return of students and seasons of other unrelated illness.
We are going to move into the practice of not contacting other families regarding symptomatic cases within the school unless there are mitigating variables regarding the frequency and potential exposure level within a class. We will continue to focus on the notification of positive, confirmed cases and conduct contact tracing for 14-day isolations for those positive cases.
