Hempfield School District issued the following announcement.
We have all been impacted in some way by COVID-19, and it is our district’s intent to remain digilent with our efforts to help mitigate the spread of this virus. Our school district has protocols in place to notify impacted individuals when we are notified that a student or staff member in one of our school buildings has tested positive for COVID-19.
At this time, the PA Department of Health defines a “close contact” as an individual who was within 6 feet of a COVID+ person for at least 15 minutes. You may have read that the CDC recently redefined a "close contact” as anyone who was within six feet of someone infected for a total of 15 minutes over the course of 24 hours. We understand that the PA Department of Health is reviewing this guidance, and we are awaiting their direction. If our contact tracing protocols must be updated, we will notify you.
At this time, any individual who must quarantine because they are identified as a close contact will be notified by school personnel. A parent or guardian must come to school to pick up the student. The student will receive quarantine instructions from the school nurse.
We also send notification to any individual who is not a close contact but may have been exposed to the COVID+ individual in a classroom or extracurricular activity. This notification is sent to the parent/guardian email contacts as listed in Powerschool. We believe it is important for parents/guardians to monitor their student for 14 days related to COVID-19 symptoms.
For these reasons, it is important that we have current contact information in Powerschool. If you need to update your phone numbers or email address, contact your school. If you have questions about quarantining or close contacts, contact your school building nurse.
Our goal is to share information that respect’s individual privacy but also allows families to react accordingly. Each school day by 4:00 p.m., we update the "Daily Reporting Chart" to notify our school community if we conducted contact tracing in the district. Additionally, at the first school board meeting of each month, our superintendent briefs the board on the total number of positive cases districtwide. The next School Board meeting is Wednesday, November 4 at 7:00 p.m. It will be streamed via Zoom, and details will be posted to our website.
Watch this 2-Minute Talk for an update from our superintendent reminding our school community to remain vigilant with health and safety protocols to help ensure that our schools stay open for in-person instruction.
Original source can be found here.
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