A Letter from our School Nurses

Spanish - Hmong

Dear SASD Families/Caregivers,

Welcome back! The health and safety of our students and staff is always our highest priority. We want to assure you that we are working closely with the Sheboygan County Division of Public Health to monitor COVID-19. We look forward to our ongoing partnership with you as we work together to keep our students safe.

We want to provide you with some information and share the steps we will need from you in this partnership.

Here is what we’ll need you to do.

The steps the district is taking to reduce the risk of COVID-19 are listed out on the district website but we need your help, too! We cannot eliminate the risks of COVID-19 entirely. Every time you send your child to school, daycare, or sports they are at risk of exposure. The more partnership we have as a school community the less risk we all share. We can only succeed to keep schools functioning if students with symptoms of COVID-19 stay home from school. COVID-19 symptoms can be similar to other illnesses, such as the flu or common cold. Your child will be sent home if experiencing mild symptoms.

DAILY SCREENINGS

1. Check your child for symptoms every single school day. Instructions are on the Health & Counseling page of the district website.
   
2. Do not send your child to school if:
   1. They had recent close contact with someone who has COVID-19
   2. They are waiting for COVID-19 test results
   3. Your child was recently diagnosed with COVID-19
   4. A sibling or family member is ill with COVID-19 symptoms
      
      All siblings need to remain home when symptoms are present. One child with COVID-19 symptoms can cause a household of illness and expose several classrooms of students and staff. If you have any questions on whether your child should come to school, the best decision would be to keep them home and monitor their symptoms an extra day. During the first quarter, we heard, “it was just a little congestion”, or “it was just a scratchy throat” only to have students and siblings test positive.
      
3. Call the school’s attendance line and leave a detailed message when you keep your child home. Call the siblings’ schools as well.
   
4. Monitor your child for symptoms and seek out community testing. A list of testing sites can be found on the district website. Community based testing sites are free and provide molecular tests that are considered accurate. A negative test from a community based testing site will be accepted for a symptomatic child whose symptoms are improving to return to school. Not all tests are approved for re-entry to school. A symptomatic child will not be able to attend school with a negative antigen test result. If you become concerned about the severity of your child’s condition, notify your provider.

PLAN AHEAD

Be prepared to pick up your child in case your child becomes ill at school. Keep your contact information current at school so we can reach you as soon as possible. Identify who would be able to help pick up your child if you are not available during the school day and make sure to have this emergency contact’s information updated with the office staff.

Cloth face coverings/masks are still required at school. Send an extra mask, in a bag or baggie to keep it clean, so they can exchange them if their mask becomes soiled or wet during the day. The district website has resources on cloth face coverings/masks.

ANTICIPATE EXPOSURE

Expect that your child is always at risk of being exposed. We will no longer be reporting individual cases in school as we did in the first quarter. That risk increases based on their activities. If they are on a school bus, in daycare, or on a sports team those risks increase as they add cohorts to their day. The amount of disease in the community is currently too high to have a good grasp on how many people are actually contagious.

The SASD contact tracing team will attempt to notify families by phone or email if close contact exposures occur. We will provide quarantine information to you at that time. The caveat is that we need to know about the case in a timely manner for this information to be valuable to you. Therefore, we continue to encourage you to keep your social circles small to reduce the risk of spread in the community.

If you have questions or concerns, particularly if someone in your household is at high risk of complications from COVID-19, please feel free to contact your school nurse, your child’s medical provider or the Sheboygan County Division of Public Health for more information.

Your school nurses thank you!

Lori Hamilton BSN, RN, Christine Grunwald RN, Terri Boxrucker BSN, RN, Nicole Guillette BSN, RN