Health & Safety Guidelines
Promoting Behaviors
That Reduce Spread
Hand Washing or Sanitizing
Students and staff must frequently wash hands with soap and water or use hand sanitizer, which will be provided.
Students should wash/sanitize hands before:
- Starting the school day
- Eating/drinking
- Putting on face covering
Students should wash/sanitize hands after:
- Cough/sneezing/blowing nose
- Using the restroom
- Eating/drinking
- Touching hair/face/face covering
- Touching commonly used surfaces
Face Masks or Cloth Face Coverings
- As of April 2022, masking is strongly recommended but not required.
- Masking is a critical public health tool and it is important to remember that any mask is better than no mask.
- Wear the most protective mask you can that fits well and will wear consistently.
- Wearing a well-fitted mask along with vaccination, self-testing, and physical distancing helps protect you and others by reducing the chance of spreading COVID-19.
When Someone
Gets Sick
Students and staff who test positive will be asked to isolate at home for at least five days immediately.
The individual may return after five days have passed since symptoms began, even if symptoms started after the positive test, as long as:
- Symptoms are getting better, and
- No fever for 24 hours without taking medicines for fever like acetaminophen (Tylenol), ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil), or naproxen (Aleve), and
- A negative test was collected on or after Day 5.
If the child is not retested, they must stay home for ten days after symptoms start and may return after the above three bullets are also true.
COVID-19 2023/2024 Protocols if Positive or/and Close Contact
Updated September 26, 2023
Helpful
Definitions
Contagious
When the person who is infected can give the virus to others.
A person with COVID-19 is considered contagious 2 days before their symptoms start until at least 10 days later, fever is gone 24 hours, and symptoms have improved.
If a person with COVID-19 has no symptoms, they are considered contagious 2 days before their positive test until 10 days after the positive test.
If a person who was initially asymptomatic develops symptoms after testing positive, the contagious period should be considered as two days before the test date and is extended to ten days after the onset of symptoms.
Close contact
Someone sharing the same indoor space with an infected person for a total of 15 minutes or more within a 24-hour period may be considered to be a “close contact” for COVID-19. This includes people living in the infected person’s home, caregivers, classmates, work colleagues within the same office space, and others who may have been close enough to the infected person to be exposed to the virus and possibly infected. A person with COVID-19 may expel virus into the air when they cough, sneeze, sing, speak or even just breathe. This may cause virus particles to build up in an indoor airspace over time and infect others more than 6 feet away. While someone is more likely to become infected if they were within 6 feet of a person with COVID-19, the longer someone is sharing an enclosed airspace with an infected person, especially if the room or space is poorly ventilated, the greater the risk that the exposed person will become infected.
Quarantine
Quarantine is used to keep people who have been exposed to COVID-19 away from others while they may be contagious. After someone has been exposed to COVID-19, they must stay home and away from other people for a recommended period after their last exposure until they meet the criteria to return from quarantine. Close contacts who are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or had COVID-19 within the previous 3 months do not have to quarantine after close contact with someone with COVID-19, as long as they are asymptomatic.
Isolation
Isolation is used to keep people who are infected away from others while they are contagious. This is usually 10 days after COVID-19 symptoms appeared or after they test positive.