CLEARFIELD – The Health and Safety Plan for Clearfield Area School District was reviewed by the associated committee on Jan. 11 and proposed revisions were presented to, and then adopted by the board of directors at Monday’s meeting.
Superintendent Terry Struble reported the committee reviewed data from July 1 to the meeting date. Since then, the state has experienced a surge in COVID-19 cases and Clearfield County has also experienced a surge.
Struble said that the state is now seeing a decrease in cases and expects that the county will follow suit.
The committee is continuing to encourage students to wear masks and they also discussed resuming temperature screenings; however, the school nurses replied that elevated temperatures are not a reliable indicator of COVID.
He also noted that the water fountains have been reopened at the high school and that bottle fillers are attached to the fountains.
However, at the elementary school the fountains remain closed as the younger students are not as careful in using them and not all have bottle fillers are attached yet.
The biggest concern is contact tracing and this is where the committee has recommended a change in policy.
Struble said that they have for the most part had to depend on parents reporting illness in their children and positive COVID tests since the state Department of Health no longer notifies the district.
While most report a positive test as soon as they have it, many don’t report the result for days or even weeks, and some do not have a test done at all for various reasons.
Three changes were proposed and adopted by the board:
- first, whoever is determined to have a positive test must follow current guidelines including quarantine or isolation for five days after receiving a positive test;
- those identified as having close contact in the family must also quarantine or isolate five days;
- the school district will only do tracing of those in close situation with those who have tested positive, such as paraprofessionals, therapists, etc.
Families will be notified at the end of each day if a student has tested positive and will be asked to watch their children closely for symptoms if they have been in close contact with the positive student.
This will allow the nurses to focus on caring for students and spend less time tracing contacts.