Q: How do you do contact tracing? How will I know if my child is a close contact?
A: When we find out that someone with COVID was at school, we launch a thorough investigation to identify close contacts. This process often includes staff, school nurse, director of health services and COVID-19 safety team. You can see this chart for a definition of a close contact and how vaccination status impacts quarantine requirements.
If there was exposure, we do contact tracing, which is another way of saying we determine if there are close contacts. If there are close contacts, we prioritize communication with close contacts as quickly as possible. We work in partnership with our COVID safety team and the health department to determine and share exposure date, return date and resources.
After we have notified close contacts, we update the COVID dashboard on our website, which we update regularly. If we learn of multiple cases in a classroom over a short duration, we will communicate that. These cases may be coincidental and unrelated. If the health department determines transmission is occurring, we will work closely with them on next steps and communicate.
Please remember: if your child is a close contact, you will be notified. If you’re not notified but you see a case on the dashboard, you should assume your child was not a close contact.
And as always, keep masking, washing hands, keeping distance as able, watching for symptoms, etc. Vaccine and masks continue to be our most important mitigation tactics.
Our two primary goals for the 2021-22 school year are to maximize in-person instruction by keeping kids in school and to minimize the transmission of COVID-19 among students and staff and to their families and our broader community. Our best protections are the COVID-19 vaccine and masks.
Here is the current guidance that we will follow:
- Masks are required inside schools for everyone regardless of vaccination status.
- Masks are optional outside but recommended for crowded events.
- Physical distance should not be a barrier to in-person instruction. Our goal is to have a distance of 3 feet between students in the classroom.
- We will not be doing health attestations for students. We ask that everyone stay home when they are sick.
- We are hoping to expand testing access to every school.
- We will continue to do contact tracing.
- We will continue to focus on handwashing and sanitizing.
