(12/15) At its December meeting, Fairfield Area School District (FASD) school board altered its quarantining policy to provide flexibility for asymptomatic students. The change to the health and safety plan comes in response to administrative recommendations to help reduce the number of district students absent.
The revisions were established in order to provide a safe environment for students and staff and increase the likelihood to allow for in-person instruction. "The basis of all of this work has been keeping kids in school," Interim Superintendent Larry Redding said.
Conversations throughout the district between administration and school nurses developed a framework to address needs specific to Fairfield.
The school district’s new quarantine plan details quarantining guidelines and provides parents options for students to be exposed without symptoms. Quarantining will be optional for exposed students that are symptom free. Any return to school within 14 days of exposure will require a mask, regardless of exceptions.
Upon the lifting of the state mandated requirement to wear masks, the Board approved the continued usage while the Adams County COVID transmission rate is at the high levels.
"We are currently in a very high rate of transmission. We are opting to say masks required," he said.
The new policy also states it will strengthen quarantine requirements, "If more than one positive case is noted in the same classroom within 14 days or if there is an increased trend in positive cases at school,"
The school district does not currently follow the CDC’s recommendation to quarantine for 14 days after potential exposure and currently implements a 10-day quarantine, with the option to test and end at day seven, Ebaugh said.
The quarantine procedure does not have approval from the department of health. The district also does not implement social distancing, due to limited classroom spacing. "So we are already compromising on that point," she said.
Masks played a role in the quarantine decision as well.
Requiring masks in district buildings is essential to keeping students in the classroom during periods of higher rates of transmission, School District Nurse Kristi Ebaugh said.
The fact that students in school spend time in close proximity to others for hours on end is a distinguishing factor in the mandate. "We know we are putting kids at risk by being close," Redding said.
"We have a history of what happened before masks, while we’ve had masks, and where we potentially will go," he said.
Prior to the mask mandate, the district saw 12 positive cases and 62 quarantines. Since the mask mandate we’ve had 54 positives who have been present at school and we’ve only had to quarantine 83 of those students, she said. However, within the last two weeks of the board’s meeting, there were 37 quarantines, which parallels with the current COVID outbreak across the country.
"I think we should make an educational decision based on all of the data that we have, which has definitely changed since the beginning of August," she said.
Redding noted that parents and guardians have to understand the risks and higher levels of infection possibilities associated with not wearing a mask, and must submit mask exemption forms to district officials including administration and the school nurse for approval.
"Our intent is encouraging the continued use of masks," Redding said.
In order to establish the safest environment that allows students in the classrooms, only once county rates reduce to low risk will the school district implement masks as optional.
"In these confined spaces, we should be doing everything possible," Redding said.
FASD’s updated quarantine policy can be found on the district website at www.fairfieldpaschools.org/fasd.
