Tri-County News

Friday Update, Aug. 20, 2021


By Mark Messman, Superintendent

EV-W District #463

As we continue to prepare for another school year and the potential of COVID impacts, our top priorities are the health and well-being of our students, staff, and community. We need your help and support for the COVID mitigation strategies to offer a traditional school calendar of in-person learning. Following are some recent updates, and the district website will also provide time-sensitive guidance.

Requirements

• CDC requires face coverings on the school bus (federal mandate).

• MDH requires schools to report positive cases.

Recommendations

• Face coverings are recommended as it helps prevent the spread of illness.

• Vaccinations are encouraged for those who are eligible.

• Families and staff are asked to screen for any health symptoms prior to entering school.

• Stay home if you are sick.

• Hand hygiene, distancing, sanitizing, and enhanced ventilation will continue to the extent possible.

Health screening and quarantining

• Our goal is to provide in-
person learning and limit the time out of the classroom.

• Nursing best practice includes family notification when a student is in close contact with a COVID-positive person.

• Families and employees should self-screen for symptoms of illness and stay home if ill.

• Students and staff who test positive are required to quarantine.

• Family close contacts will receive guidance from their family medical provider/MDH.

• If fully vaccinated, no need to quarantine for family close contact unless symptomatic.

• School close contacts will be notified, asked to monitor symptoms, and stay home if ill.

• Must be fever-free for 24 hours without fever-reducing meds prior to attending school.

• No need to quarantine if fully vaccinated.

• No need to quarantine if practicing social distance and masking.

• No need to quarantine with lab-confirmed COVID in the past 90 days, monitor symptoms.

In anticipation of the upcoming school year, the EV-W schoolboard and administrative team would like to recognize the proactive and responsible measures that many of you have taken to ensure a safe school climate and that face-to-face instruction continues. Thank you! Your resiliency, perseverance, and teamwork has helped minimize the impact of COVID within our schools and community. Yet the work continues, and together we must model these mitigation strategies to help protect those who cannot yet be vaccinated or who remain at high risk because of immune-compromised status. We’ll continue to monitor the guidance and recommendations from CDC and MDH and, of course, remain compliant with all mandates and requirements.

Thank you for supporting our goal of keeping our students and staff safe, and our priority of offering uninterrupted face-to-face instruction in the 2021-2022 school year.

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