COVID IN SCHOOLS–NOTIFICATIONS TO FAMILIES

FRSD families,

It has become clear in the last 72 hours, that COVID-19 is running wild in our community.  Most of the cases are a result of students being close contacts OUTSIDE of school, and being forced to quarantine, OR catching COVID-19 from off-campus events or family members, and testing positive a few days later, with or without symptoms, thus requiring isolation for the individual, and contact tracing by the school.

The process of identification, contact tracing, informing families, and working with those in quarantine to provide educational services  has quickly become taxing to our system.  Keeping up with the information, subsequent contract tracing and informing of parents is a critical step to reduce the spread but is very time consuming as well. The district is committed to providing proactive and transparent communication to staff and families regarding this topic.  In the days ahead, we are committed to:

• SAFETY PROTOCOLS: Continuing to implement and enforce all of our current campus safety protocols including (but not limited to): screening, cleaning, mask wearing, ventilation upgrades, hand washing, social distancing and use of cohorts where possible.
• CLOSE CONTACT NOTIFICATION:  ANYONE that we have identified to be a close contact through contact tracing while the positive person was on campus will be personally contacted. All people identified as close contacts will be contacted directly with a phone call, notified of the exposure, and provided information about appropriate measures that need to be taken.  Typically, all close contacts are identified and notified within 1-2 days of first learning of the case.  Certain circumstances such as complex contact tracing may take longer.
• NOTIFICATION OF THOSE “NOT” A CLOSE CONTACT:  Any day that the school is notified of a positive case on campus, all families in the building will be notified via a website post that same day, or first thing the next day depending on timing.  In addition, there will be a phone dialer to all families, when the positive case was on campus in the last 24-48 hours.  The message will be, that at this time we are conducting contact tracing, and that any one identified as a close contact will be notified.  The phone dialer will NOT be utilized in examples where we are notified of a positive case, and the student has not been on campus for over 48 hours from the time we were notified they were positive.

The best ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19 include being vaccinated when eligible, wearing face masks, keeping physical distance from others, staying home when ill, and practicing other good health hygiene habits.  Thank you for helping to protect  your family and school community by following public health officials safety guidance.