Sent via SchoolMessenger on September 28, 2021
Now that the school year is underway, we’d like to update you regarding our COVID-19 contact tracing.
Over the past two weeks, contact tracing has been conducted for more than a dozen reported COVID-19 cases. Despite the flurry of cases, the impact of quarantine on our students and staff has been greatly reduced due to revised New York State guidelines and consistent indoor masking and social distancing. This has allowed our schools to remain open on a full-time, in-person basis.
As a reminder, your child should remain home if:
- Experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 or other illness. Remote learning is not available for students who are absent due to illness. It is important that students who are sick take the time they need to rest and recuperate, especially in the midst of a pandemic. School health rules require that all students must be free of fever, without the use of fever-reducing medication, for at least 24 hours before they can return to school. Any missed school work can be made up once they are healthy and back in school; and/or
- Awaiting COVID-19 test results; and/or
- Required to quarantine due to an exposure at or outside of school. Remote learning is available for those quarantined and those awaiting COVID test results, provided that they are well enough to participate.
If your child receives a positive COVID-19 test result, please follow the reporting instructions posted on our COVID-19 Reporting webpage, which is linked to the District homepage at www.socsd.org.
Please note that students and staff who present with COVID-19 symptoms during the school day will be isolated and sent home within 30 minutes. A negative COVID test must be provided to the district before the individual returns to school.
To reduce email volume, the District is revising its notification procedure. Effective today, the District will send out a single notification email at 4PM each weekday when schools are in session. If no reports are received, no notification will be sent that day. Reports received after 4PM, as well as those received on holidays and weekends, will be included in the next weekday’s email notification. Reported cases will continue to be updated in the New York State COVID-19 School Report Card Dashboard, which is linked to the District’s COVID-19 Reporting webpage.
Our contact tracing procedure will not change. Contact tracing is conducted as cases are reported. Those identified as contacts of a confirmed COVID-19 case may be called by the District’s contact tracing team between the hours of 8AM-8PM, seven days a week.