Does your school notify for positive cases in building?

[boiler717]

Short question: does your school notify all families of any positive cases in the building or only affected individuals? Do they notify for any “potential” cases where people are out sick with Covid symptoms or awaiting test results?

My son is home sick with Covid symptoms (cough). I emailed his school Sunday to alert them right away. His doctor wants him to wait 2 days to see if symptoms persist, then receive a PCR test Wednesday if they do. She says testing on day 3-4 of symptoms will be much more accurate. This will mean like Friday for results.

I called the school Monday to update them on his doctor’s plan. I asked if there have been any cases in the building, and the director told me the class next door to his had a student with a positive test last week. That class was shut down, but no notification to the school. I asked if they shared a dismissal hallway, and she said it wasn’t relevant because it doesn’t meet the 6’ for 15 min threshold. I am pretty livid because being 6’ away for a 20 min dismissal window over 24 hours is not a magically safe distance.

They are apparently also not notifying my son’s class that he is out with symptoms and awaiting potential Covid testing. I think this a bit more grey, but I am always on the side of full transparency. I would be pretty upset to know if one of my son’s classmates was in the other situation and we weren’t notified.

What’s the practice are your school?

[vtdiamond]

Yes. My twins are in kindergarten in a public school. For any positive cases the superintendent has sent an email out to all families in the district letting us know which school was affected. The principal of that specific school also emails all the families at their school.

[VillainV]

Our school does a mass automated call-out for confirmed cases in the buildings. They don’t give any details—no grade info, they don’t say if it was a student or teacher, etc. Then they personally notify those who were in contact with that individual with more specific instructions (but still no personal details).

So far our full-time in-person school with 600 kids in the building has had two confirmed cases this year.

[1yeartogo]

This is one reason I didn’t want my kids in hybrid. Our district only notifies close contacts which they define as within 6’ for more than 15 minutes. This means even if someone in the class is affected essentially no one is notified since the desks are 6 ft apart. They play with semantics to make it seem like there are no cases/risk for cases.

[SusanBAnthony]

Positive in the district but not which building. We only have 3 buildings though.

No notification for a potential case.

[joy]

Notified for positives; no notification for people being tested.

This is true for school, daycare and work for me.

[Mrs.flang]

We just attend a private daycare but they notified the whole school, and closed only the affected classroom.

[brooke77]

My son is in paid preschool that is part of the public school system. Kids in his school building are ages 3-6. We are notified of any positive case in the building (student/staff). If identified as a close contact (maskless within 6 feet for more than 15 minutes) there would be a separate list. The kids are all masked except when eating at separate desks which are 6 feet apart, so I think technically we should never be in a situation where we get a “close contact” email. I think there is also publicly available information of all positive cases in each school in the town.

ETA: These are only confirmed positives. We fill a health questionnaire each morning and anyone with potential symptoms is asked not to go to school until there is a negative test or alternative diagnosis. There is no available data on those pending results.

[browneyedgirl9]

We receive an email from the school when they have a positive case in the building. If the positive case is in a specific class, they receive a call and instructions about quarantine.

[outnumbered]

Our district informs us that a person in the building has tested positive. They only inform close contacts with more specific information. In your case you would not have been contacted in our district. If you knew that there was a positive in the building would you have proceeded differently last week?

ETA:  Edited because not clear: You would have been told there was a positive in the building and contacted with more details and quarantine info if there was close contact.

[abs]

We receive an email from the principal and district for any positive cases in the school. They don't say if it was a teacher or student but you can see that information on the district Covid dashboard that is updated daily. No notifications for anything but a confirmed positive test though.

[jinkies]

Yes. They specify if it is student or staff, and say either that close contacts will be notified, or there were no close contacts.

They do not notify if someone if being tested. I feel like that would be problematic.

If you are not considered a close contact, you are not given any info on what class, etc.

[cherry1111]

We get an email from the principal when someone tests positive. Anyone in close contact who has to quarantine is notified separately. No other notifications. There is a district dashboard updated daily with number of new cases that day and number of active cases by each school.

[expectantsteelerfan]

Yes, they had been emailing about every case in the district actually, but our school also just rolled out a Covid Dashboard on their website last night, so they said they will only email now if you have a child in the building, and for all other info you can check the dashboard. I love this idea because it's actually much more informative and easy to understand than the emails had been (you can see the number of resolved cases and active cases, with links to who needs to quarantine etc.)

[origami]

We get emails for every positive case in the building but those don’t have any details. Only “close contacts” get told they were exposed and need to be tested. No notifications for potential cases.

[minniemouse]

We get emails and text messages for every case in the district. We have 13 schools with something like 10,000 students total. They were sending an individual email/text for each case they were notified by the DOH. Yesterday they consolidated it into a daily email- thankfully!! The emails just say “an individual”, not teacher or student, and when they were last in the building.

[cricketwife]

Private school. The entire school community is notified by email if there is a positive case. Additionally there is a Covid-dashboard that is kept updated. People who are home because they have Covid-like symptoms and are awaiting results is not something made public. BUT, the number of quarantines for known exposures is published on the dashboard. There is also a team of nurses who does contact tracing for each positive case on campus. They definitely err on the side of caution in terms of requiring people to quarantine.

[jordylee]

Private preschool: there was one confirmed case in the Pre-K room. Whole school was notified, and the affected classroom was shut down for 14 days. They also notified parents of the preschool room that the positive case had a sibling in the preschool room who tested negative. That sibling stayed home 14 days as a precaution, but the preschool room stayed open since that student didn’t test positive. I greatly appreciated the transparency.

[CrazyLucky]

We get a phone call that says someone in the building tested positive. Then they say you get a separate phone call if it affects your kid. When it affected my kid, we got a separate phone call that said her grade would be fully remote for two weeks (we're on a hybrid schedule). And then we got a third call to let us know DD had to quarantine for two weeks.

[beerlover]

Our school notifies all families of any positive cases in students or staff (obviously no details but "a middle school teacher tested positive for Covid" or whatever), and notifies and quarantines all close contacts.

[redpenmama]

We are still virtual, so we haven't faced this yet. However, I believe the district's protocol is that only close contacts (classmates) are notified, so if a kid in a neighboring class had it, we wouldn't be called by the school (though I suspect word would travel fast).

The state has a dashboard where you can see the number of positive cases in any school at any given time, but that wouldn't tell you what class/grade those cases came from.

[orval]

We get a positive notification if someone tests positive. It does not say if it is a student, faculty or staff.

Here is part of a note sent by our principal recently explaining procedures.

Contact Tracing and Quarantining:

Once the school receives notification of a positive case, the school consults with Mecklenburg County Health Department on each case for notification and contact tracing.
An administrator uses seating charts and inspects each room to determine contact tracing for each case.
Parents of students within a six foot or less proximity, 15 or more minutes, are notified by an administrator or school nurse of quarantine.
Administrators use bus seating charts to determine contact tracing. Shuttle bus riders are not traced because contact is under the 15 minute threshold.
The community receives the “general community letter” after parents of students being quarantined are contacted.

[bronxgirl]

Yes, I get multiple notifications directly from the school, as well as subsequent official notifications and action plans from the school district. In fact, I seem to also be getting these from the school my daughter no longer goes to.

[savan]

Yes. We get a phone call and email. They also separately notify everyone who has been in close contact. We've never gotten that separate notification so I don't know what's in it.

[Dznyprnces]

We get notified about positive cases, and how many people are quarantined. The first time, they told us the grade also. The next 2 times, just that there was 1 positive case and x students and teachers quarantined. However, kids talk, so my daughter knew the grades for all the cases. Each time the email has said that if we have not already been contacted, then we were not a close contact and don’t need to quarantine. It is my understanding they don’t let us know if people are awaiting test results, only once a positive has been received.

[thebreakfastclub]

We get an email notification if there is a positive case, with no details. Those who were within close contact are notified separately.

[moonpie]

Our district has a chart on their website that they update daily. It lists the number of student/staff that is out and if it is due to a positive result, probable case, or a close contact to a case. It also lists which building these are in and how many new positive cases there are in the district from the previous day.

They work with the health department for contact tracing for notifying close contacts. So we would be notified directly within 24 hours if our child is considered a close contact.

[preppy]

We are notified for both potential and actual cases (we haven't actually had a positive case but its in their guidelines). If there is a case that class is closed for 2 weeks but the whole school closed for a deep clean for 1-2 days. That is the guidance we have been given but we haven't had cases yet. We have been notified of potential cases when a teacher had 2 symptoms but it was negative - the teacher was out all week.

[moonpie]

Also, I believe the health department is going by the 6 foot 15 minute threshold as being a close contact at our school. So we probably would not be considered a close contact unless a child in their direct classroom was positive. The kids don’t leave their rooms except gym and recess so I don’t think they’d meet the 15 minute threshold outside of their own classmates.

[lolalolalola]

Yes, ours sends out a notification to the whole school with zero identifying details. ‘There is one positive case in the school”


There is direct notification with the students who were deemed close contact so they can self isolate.