#KEEPSCHOOLSOPEN

September 9, 2020

As we begin our third week of school, I want to thank students, parents, school system employees, and the community for your support, encouragement, and patience, as we returned to school in the COVID health crisis. I really appreciate everyone following our guidelines to safely reopen, and I am very thankful that we have not had to close a school due to the spread of COVID-19! My goal is to keep all of our schools open all year!
Since we been in school, monitoring student and employee health is our highest priority. Students and employees in some of our schools have tested positive, so I wanted to share our reporting protocol:

      • When the system is notified of a positive case, the school administrators and school nurse coordinator begin “contact tracing” to determine “close contacts.” The Department of Public Health defines close contacts as anyone the positive individual has been in contact with for 15 minutes or more, within 6 feet or less, in the last 48 hours. Individuals who are close contacts of someone who is positive are required to quarantine for 14 days.
     • Parents of close contacts are contacted BY PHONE to begin a 14-day quarantine.
     • Parents of students in the same classroom receive a message.
     • The teachers and school staff are notified.
     • All parents of students in the school receive a text.
     • Our website is updated every Friday afternoon so parents and the community are aware of the COVID cases in the school system.

After two weeks in school, I am so thankful that we followed the guidance for social distancing! I had no idea how “close contacts” would impact our ability to keep schools open until we began contact tracing. When we updated our report on Friday (9/4), we had 56 employees and 132 students in quarantine. If we couldn’t maintain social distancing in our classrooms, these numbers would be much higher.

We have seen other systems that have had to close schools for a period of time. I know our students are enjoying being in school with their friends, and our secondary students are enjoying fall sports and band. Social distancing is allowing us to keep our schools open so our students can enjoy these fun fall activities.

I am meeting with the #OPENSCHOOL Task Force regularly, and we are closely monitoring our data to develop a Phase 2 plan for reopening. I appreciate everyone’s efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our schools so we can look forward to returning to a more traditional schedule in the future.