Reporting Positive Cases

Any student testing positive must stay home for at least 5 days from their onset of symptoms or test swab date pursuant to current CDC isolation guidelines, including returning to school only when fever-free for 24 hours, and properly wearing a well-fitting mask for 10 days after their positive swab.

In order for the District to monitor building-level positivity rates, please also report your student’s positive result to Dr. Williams (shawn.williams@slps.org) and Stephanie Lynch (stephanie.lynch@slps.org).

Although every effort will be made to provide work and make sure they do not fall behind, there will be no virtual or homebound component to our regular curriculum this year. As such, students will be counted absent during COVID isolation following a positive test result.

 COVID Exposure

Please take note of this significant change in guidance for 2022-2023:

If you are informed that you have had contact with someone who is COVID positive, unlike a positive result as noted above, you should NOT report this exposure to the District. The District no longer maintains any internal Contact Tracing Department, nor does the CDC recommend contact tracing or quarantining. If you are aware of your student’s close contact/exposure to someone who is COVID-positive, follow CDC precautions, including properly wearing a well-fitting mask for 10 days following the last exposure, and monitoring for symptoms.

For your information, you can find current information on the CDC’s website regarding booster requirements to stay up-to-date with vaccination.

 COVID Symptoms

Students cannot be at school with any of the following symptoms unless COVID has been ruled out:

Chill/shakes, muscle pain, sore throat, loss of taste or smell, fever (100.4 or higher), or shortness of breath, cough, abdominal pain, diarrhea. Please refer to the current Student Symptom Decision Tree for more information.

If your student has symptoms and has a contemporaneous negative COVID test result, they can attend school so long as they feel well enough, can attribute the symptoms to a non-COVID, non-contagious condition, and are fever-free.

This protocol must be followed even if you believe your student’s symptoms are due to an alternative non-COVID diagnosis, and even if they have been vaccinated + up-to-date on boosters. COVID can mimic non-contagious maladies such as allergies or sinus infections, and, as such, COVID must be ruled out in all cases. 

If your student has an ongoing medical condition wherein you have any symptoms that mimic COVID, please consult Dr. Williams and/or Stephanie Lynch. They will provide guidance on submitting a contemporaneous doctor’s note specifying your student’s symptoms such that they will not need to continuously test for COVID in order to rule it out.

 Mask Use

SLPS continues to recommend masking pursuant to all CDC masking recommendations, including masking during high COVID community levels, or if in a high-risk category. As stated above, masks should also be worn for 10 days following (1) a close contact with someone COVID-positive, or (2) a COVID positive result.

SLPS will make classroom and school-based risk mitigation efforts based on individual building positivity rates. As such, again, please make sure you report to building leadership if your student tests positive for COVID.

We all must do our part to keep our school environment safe. Please take this protocol seriously and let’s all work together as a community to keep each other informed and safe.