Cleaning A. Desk tops (you’ll be asked to put your stuff away daily) B. Hi-touch surfaces C. Virex spray D. Floors As of September 30, 2020. Page 1
Symptoms & Illnesses -- Don’t come to school sick! 1. From IDPH School Guidance 1 : Send home or deny entry (and provide remote instruction) if ANY of the following symptoms are present: Fever (100.4°F or higher) Sore throat Loss of sense of taste or smell Headache (new; moderate to Vomiting (new) severe) Diarrhea Nausea Shortness of breath Abdominal pain from unknown Fatigue from unknown cause Cough (new) cause Muscle or body aches Congestion/runny nose (new) 2. “ New ” means a new symptom that day not explained by an existing condition like allergies. 3. Staff or students may return after any of the following . . . A. Negative test result is received. B. Written alternate diagnosis of the symptoms is provided. C. After waiting ten days from first symptom day. 1 https://www.isbe.net/Documents/IDPH-COVID19-Exclusion-Decison-Tree.pdf (downloaded 9/18/2020). As of September 30, 2020. Page 2
Leaves & Sick Days 1. Everyone has a two-week COVID sick bank separate from the District’s usual s ick day allocation. A. Days used count against your FMLA 12-week allotment. B. Need not be taken all at once. 2 2. Use the COVID sick bank for 5 different reasons: A. Isolating or quarantining due to government order re COVID. B. Self-quarantining due to health care provider’s advice re COVID . C. Presenting COVID symptoms and obtaining a medical diagnosis or care (such as a COVID test). D. Caring for someone else who meets any of A - C above. E. Your child’s school or place of care has been closed due to COVID-19 related concerns and no one else is available. 3. COVID sick days are paid days. A. The pay will be the same as for regular sick pay for reasons A – C above. B. For reasons D & E, the pay is 2/3 the regular pay and capped at $200 per day. 4. Child care is now part of FMLA if for the same reason as 2.E. above. A. FMLA leave (for this reason combined with any other reason) is capped at 12 weeks per year. B. Unlike all other FMLA leaves, this one is paid. The pay is the same as 3.B. above. 5. Remote work, if approved by the District, means that the day is a work day. No sick days or leaves are used. 6. Contact Human Resources for the forms needed to claim FMLA leave or to use the COVID sick bank. A. Both sick leave and child care FMLA expire on December 31, 2020. An extension into calendar 2021 is up to Congress. 2 https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/pandemic/ffcra-questions#95 (downloaded 9/18/2020). As of September 30, 2020. Page 3
Six-foot distancing is the key to safety, exclusions, and contact tracing Classroom desks need 6-foot separations. Use larger separations in the smaller cohorts. Try to establish an 8-foot zone in front of the teaching wall whenever possible. Make it larger in the smaller cohorts. As of September 30, 2020. Page 4
What happens after a COVID diagnosis? General rules on this page; examples on the next. 1. Notify your school immediately, or have a family member call for you. A. Staff notifies supervisor; parents notify the school; school ’ s health office notifies the DuPage Health Department and vice versa. B. Notice lets us conduct tracing of the close contacts, which is critical. C. Notice also lets us notify the community. The District will prepare letters or emails to persons who are not close contacts. This letter will come out after contact tracing is completed. For privacy law reasons, it will not name the positive case but will identify the school. 2. Close contacts are identified. A. Defined: persons who are withi n 6 feet of the positive person for 15 minutes in a day and who don’t have COVID symptoms. B. Start from two days before testing day or (if earlier) the first symptom day. C. Brief or distanced contacts will not be considered by health department. D. The health department has advised the District that we should do our own tracing in the schools but that we should not trace non- school contacts. 3. The District follows IDPH guidance. 3 A. Exclude the close contacts for 14 days. B. Do not exclude any other (lesser) contact of the positive case. C. Do not exclude contacts of close contacts. D. Classroom with six-foot distancing among desks: those students are not close contacts. E. Classroom with second case in 2 weeks: expect health department inquiry that might results in all-class quarantine. 3 https://www.isbe.net/Documents/IDPH-COVID19-Exclusion-Decison-Tree.pdf (downloaded 9/18/2020) As of September 30, 2020. Page 5
Examples, what happens after a COVID diagnosis? 1. A student in a classroom or bus tests positive for COVID. A. Other household members will be excluded for 14 days. B. Classmates and the teacher will be excluded, too, but only if they were close contacts. Few or even no persons will be close contacts if social distancing was kept in the classroom or bus. See prior page: “close contact” = closer than six feet for at least 15 minutes. C. Other persons in the same grade or building will not be excluded, because they are not close contacts. 2. Someone I know is in quarantine. For example, a healthy student is in quarantine because of exposure to someone positive, even though the student has no symptoms. What about other persons who were in contact with the healthy student? A. No restrictions apply to the student’s cont acts, because they are not close contacts to someone with the illness. B. In other words, a contact of a contact has no restrictions. C. If the quarantined person later develops COVID symptoms, then check with your doctor or the school office. 3. A staff person has a child in quarantine, because the child is a close contact. Neither the child nor the staff person present COVID symptoms. Should the staff person come to work? A. Yes, the staff person should come to work. Although the child is a close contact, the staff person is not. No restrictions apply. 4. I’m isolating because I was tested positive. How long will it last? A. For 10 days from the first symptom. You must be fever-free for a day and have improved symptoms. See Column A in the IDPH guide. 4 B. Ask your school about also needing a letter from physician or local health department 5. I’m quarantining because I was exposed to someone positive. How long will it last? A. For 14 days from your last contact with the positive person, provided you stay symptom-free. Getting a COVID test won’t make it shorter. B. Ask your school about the letter you must complete to certify completion of your quarantine period. 4 https://www.isbe.net/Documents/IDPH-COVID19-Exclusion-Decison-Tree.pdf (downloaded 9/18/2020) As of September 30, 2020. Page 6
How to Decide if Schools are Open? 1. “Community Transmission” lev el is the standard for keeping schools open or switching them to remote. It’s what the DuPage Department of Public Health uses to advise school districts. 5 A. “Community Transmission” has three levels. B. Schools can be open at the two lower levels, minimal and moderate. At the highest level, remote instruction is encouraged although it might not be required for all student populations. C. See page 2 6 for how school operations relate to each level, including when in-person instruction is appropriate. D. All these points assume that our region of Illinois remains in Phase 4. 2. At this writing on September 29, DuPage County is in Moderate Transmission. 7 A. You can find up-to-date analysis at this DuPage webpage: https://www.dupagehealth.org/595/Schools-and-Daycares. Look on that page for the document entitled “ DuPage County COVID-19 School Metrics ”. 3. What about Bensenville? A. The DuPage Health Department will inform us if Bensenville schools should be considered differently than the rest of DuPage. B. On September 28, the Department told the District that Bensenville did not present concerns that are different from the rest of DuPage. This was in response to the District ’s inquiry about being able to start hybrid learning on October 13. 5 https://www.dupagehealth.org/DocumentCenter/View/3541/COVID-19-Return-to-School-Framework-8-28 (downloaded 9/29/2020). 6 https://www.dupagehealth.org/DocumentCenter/View/3541/COVID-19-Return-to-School-Framework-8-28 (downloaded 9/29/2020). 7 https://www.dupagehealth.org/ImageRepository/Document?documentId=3801 (downloaded 9/29/2020). As of September 30, 2020. Page 7
What are good sources for COVID statistics? 1. DuPage County COVID-19 Dashboard has the most accurate DuPage data for each DuPage city. A. They revise the case count frequently to eliminate double-counting and to assign the most accurate date to each case. B. https://www.dupagehealth.org/610/DuPage-County-COVID-19-Dashboard. 2. Illinois COVID data by Zip Code, presented by Northwestern University, has excellent graphics. A. It presents the positivity rate in zip code 60106, which is not available on DuPage’s dashboard . B. The data has a delay of a day or two and may not reflect the data revisions that DuPage creates. C. http://covid- dashboard.fsm.northwestern.edu/?fbclid=IwAR3KXK0A0YOPfPN1OjIXe0gobWxbW9hLESBppMPX_1pTQ_uFGFhofjzE16s. 3. DuPage County, COVID-19 Information for Schools and Daycare, has a good collection of explanations and data for understanding school operations under COVID. A. https://www.dupagehealth.org/595/Schools-and-Daycares. As of September 30, 2020. Page 8
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