You can find the two latest COVID-19 Weekly Dashboards, including a breakdown of data by school building by clicking here. The two dashboards released today are for the dates of 12/18-12/24 and 12/25-12/31. On Friday, January 8, we will release our weekly dashboard for 1/1-1/7/21.

We're excited to announce Sycamore Community Schools is now using an automated system to build our weekly dashboards. This will ensure the accuracy of all data reported going forward. An audit over Winter Break using the new system revealed minor errors in our year to date totals which have been adjusted beginning with our 12/18-12/24 weekly dashboard. Dashboards issued prior to the 12/18-12/24 dashboard have not been adjusted to reflect the correction.

Sycamore Community Schools has recently received updated guidelines from the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) regarding close contact tracing as a result of evidence of low in-school transmission.

The district will follow the guidelines beginning Wednesday, January 6, which now states the following:

• If a student or staff member is exposed in a traditional classroom setting to someone with COVID-19, the individual does not need to quarantine as long as masking and other safety and health protocols were followed.

• If a student or staff member is exposed in a traditional classroom and safety protocols have not been followed (e.g., students or adults in the classroom did not properly wear masks), the individual must quarantine for 14-days from the date of exposure.

• If a student or staff member is exposed to COVID-19 outside the traditional classroom setting, such as on a bus, at lunch, band or choir class, sports practice, etc. the individual must quarantine for 14 days from the date of exposure. The revised guidelines above only apply in traditional classroom settings.

• If a student or staff member is exposed to COVID-19 outside of school (ie. at home or in the community) the individual must quarantine for 14 days from the date of exposure.

The new ODH recommended protocols were updated based on consultation with many resources, including a preliminary evaluation of K-12 school students conducted by the Ohio Schools COVID-19 Evaluation Team (OSCE). It showed that, in a supervised classroom setting, there was no discernible difference in rates of COVID-19 among students who were close contacts with someone with COVID-19 and students in the same grade who were not close contacts.

Sycamore Community Schools encourages staff and families to follow CDC guidance related to travel. If your family has elected to self-quarantine due to travel over Winter Break, please notify your school of this excused absence. Teachers have been instructed to provide access to instruction to any students who self-quarantine.