Dear Parents,
SSC would like to update each of you on what was learned during the ISDH Webinar on Thursday. Since we have a mask mandate in place at our schools, we will no longer be required to contact trace and send home close contacts during the school day (school day is now inclusive of getting on the bus, whole day at school, lunch, recess, gym, band, and going home on the bus). This is great news and hopefully our situation will continue to get better.
Shenandoah staff will still be required to look at seating charts of classrooms/lunch/bus and notify parents of potential exposure. We will be notifying parents in writing (time permitting) or by One Call if a student has been in close contact at school. At lunch, we will not need to quarantine if a student is sitting next to a positive student. Parents, please reinforce that masks should be worn until your student sits down at the table to eat their meal and to put their mask back on once finished eating. If SSC begins to see spread of the virus at school we will have to quarantine close contacts again.
Sports will continue to be contact traced based on each situation and is now not considered part of the school day.
Again, these are all updates from the ISDH for masked schools as of Thursday, January 27th. If we would end our mask mandate we would be back to contact tracing for everyone less than six feet away from a positive individual. As you likely recall from the Fall, the masks optional policy did not work for SSC, as we had to send over 600 students home due to close contact tracing in a two week period.
Thank you!
Respectfully,
Ron Green