Health & Safety

Masks

As of March 11, 2022 masks are no longer required in schools.

Students may continue to wear masks if they or their parents choose. Students may request a mask from the school office if they do not have one.

COVID-19 Testing

The CDPH recommends testing students for COVID-19 if the student has COVID symptoms or has been exposed to COVID-19. The school may have take-home tests for parents to use at home. The school will not test students at school without prior parent permission. At this time the school does not plan to test all students upon return to school.

Staff who have not been vaccinated must continue to be tested for COVID each week.

Symptoms of COVID or other Illness

If students have symptoms of a flu or COVID the school will notify parents and after consulting with the parent could potentially request that the parent to pick the student up from school and keep them at home until symptoms resolve. Students must stay home if within the last 24 hours they have had a fever over 100.4°F, had diarrhea or have been vomiting.

Students Diagnosed with COVID-19

The CDPH recommends that students who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 stay home for five days. The school will allow students diagnosed with COVID to return to school sooner than the five days as long as the student does not have a fever and symptoms are getting better. A COVID test will not be required since it is evident that the most contagious period of the illness preceeds a positive test.

Parent Notifications and Tracing

Parents will be notified if their child(ren) have been exposed to COVID at school, insofar as the school is aware of the exposure (frequently someone may be exposed to a non-sympomatic positive case; there is no way for the school to be aware of this type of exposure). Students who are exposed to COVID may continue to attend school if they do not have symptoms. It is not necessary to test students for COVDID after they have been exposed, but they school might in particular cases consult with parents about testing.

Outbreaks

The CDPH recognizes that even in the event of an outbreak, closing schools introduces more problems than it solves and they have passed on to county health offices the responsibility of determining what schools must do in the event of an outbreak.

The Imperial County Public Health Department defines an Outbreak as "at least threesuspected, probable, or confirmed COVID-19 cases within a 14-day periodamong people who are epidemiologically linked in the setting, and are not known to be close contacts of each other in any other case investigation. In other words, if at least three students who have contact with each other at school get COVID within a 14-day period then the school has had a 'potential COVID outbreak,' unless the students also have contact with each other outside of school. If they have had contact with each other outside of school then the outbreak cannot be said to have originated at the school.

Whenever the school has had a 'potential outbreak' the outbreak will be reported to the county health department. The health department has the right to conduct an investigation of outbreaks.