January 19, 2021

Good Morning Parents and Guardians,

Please be aware that the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MA DPH) has just removed the requirement that all students receive the influenza vaccine for attendance in public schools this year. In summary, if your child(ren) has not yet received the influenza vaccination, it is no longer required, however, DPH still encourages it. Please see the email below that we received on Friday, Jan. 15, 2021. We truly appreciate your ongoing compliance with the mandates DESE and MA DPH roll out to us; we also acknowledge the inconvenience this MA DPH change may have caused you.

Sincerely,

Brenda Theriault-Regan

Sent: Friday, January 15, 2021
Subject: IMPORTANT UPDATE FOR SCHOOL NURSES RE INFLUENZA VACCINE REQUIREMENT

Greetings from the School Health Unit:

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is removing the requirement for flu vaccination for attendance in childcare/preschool, primary, secondary and postsecondary education. Preliminary data show that this has been a mild flu season to date, presumably as people have received their seasonal flu vaccine and have been adhering to mask-wearing and social distancing due to COVID-19. Given the intensive Commonwealth-wide efforts regarding COVID-19 vaccination, DPH wants to alleviate the burden to obtain flu vaccination and focus on continuing our COVID -19 vaccination efforts.

DPH continues to strongly recommend that everyone age six months and older receive their seasonal flu vaccine each year.

The updated schedule can be found here.

Thank you for all your hard work on behalf of the young people and families of our Commonwealth,

Karen

Karen Robitaille, MBA, MSN, RN, NCSN

<she, her, hers>

Director of School Health Services

Division of Child/Adolescent Health and Reproductive Health

Massachusetts Department of Public Health

250 Washington St. 5th floor, Boston, MA 02108

karen.robitaille2@state.ma.us

Absentee & Picture Retakes

Please review the available slots below and click on the button to sign up. Thank you!

Date: 02/04/2021 (Thu.)
Location: Gym ~ 11 - 2

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d45a9ac28a1f4c61-absentee

As a friendly reminder:

When your child is working at home on a remote day, your child must login to the scheduled meets in order to be marked present. Your child must remain on screen for the entire session. We understand that there may be some extenuating circumstances. Please discuss these with your child's teacher.

As indicated in the recent email to parents from Assistant Superintendent Regan, the district will now be sharing positive COVID-19 case data by school on the new TPS COVID-19 Active Case Dashboard which can be found on the TPS website by clicking on the yellow COVID-19 Resources & Updates banner bar at the top of the home page. The link below will be included in my weekly principal's message to allow for quick access to this dashboard. If a new case does occur at the school, parents or caregivers of any student considered a close contact will be contacted by the nurse.

COVID-19 Dashboard

Tewksbury Public Schools are following all of the Department of Public Health Guidelines regarding travel outside of Massachusetts. If for any reason your Dewing School student has to travel to a high risk state, you must follow the guidelines for testing and quarantine. This is to ensure the health and safety of all Dewing School students and staff. The states that are determined to be low risk can change weekly so you need to keep that in mind in when traveling. These guidelines are located on the Massachusetts DPH COVID -19 website and the low risk states are listed on the link below:

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-travel-order#lower-risk-states-

Helpful Resources

CDC website: https://www.mass.gov/flu-facts

Vaccine Finder:https://www.cdc.gov/flu/freeresources/flu-finder-widget.html

Visitors-Please be reminded, at this time, visitors are not permitted inside the building. This is for the health and safety of our students and staff. The only people permitted are staff members, students and approved contractors. If you need to contact the office in person, please come to the main door and ring the bell. A staff member will come out to talk to you and help you.

Late Arrivals-If your child is dropped off to school after 8:45, you must park in an assigned parking spot (not the bus drop off lane) and walk your child to the door. Please ring the bell and wait for a staff member to greet your child in person.

Nurse Dismissals-If your child is dismissed by the nurse, the dismissal area is now through the gym door (last door, closest to the C-wing). The gym is located on the right side of the building as you are facing the building. This is also the parent drop off area. You must call the nurse from your car to inform her of your arrival 97-640-7858 x303

We know that these procedures are different from other years and we appreciate your adherence to them. Every change we make is done to support the health and safety of our community. Thank you.

Please complete one accident/illness form for each child. These forms MUST be updated as information changes. It is very important that we have your contact information on file.

https://forms.gle/S8whB6xPF2ekknQSA

Our School Nurse is Ms. Jill Robinson. Please contact her at the Dewing School 978-640-7858 or by email at jrobinson@tewksbury.k12.ma.us