Dear Faculty, Students and Parents of PGSD,
I am sure most of you have heard the Governor’s updated announcement concerning covid-19 quarantines. Let me explain what this means for the Prairie Grove School District.
1 - We will begin today with the 3 foot contact tracing within our K-12 students and faculty. We are in hopes that this will significantly decrease our quarantines.
2 - We will not sign up to participate in the Test-To-Stay program at this time for the following reasons:
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As of the last ACHI map report, Prairie Grove is the only district still in the “orange” stage; the remainder of Washington and Benton Counties are in the yellow and green. For this reason, we are remaining with the 10 and 14 day quarantines as well. When the numbers go down, we intend to consider modifying our quarantine requirements to move to the 7 day quarantine as allowed by the ADH guidelines.
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At this time it is taking 8 staff members to monitor, implement guidelines and prepare paperwork required to maintain 10 and 14 day quarantines and isolations.
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Test-To-Stay requirements, as stated now, would be very difficult to monitor and implement:
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It is not a one time negative test to be exempt. It requires testing daily or 3 times a week depending upon the tests available (Rapid or PCR). Availability is a concern at this time. It can be up to a 15 minute wait or longer, which causes a concern of where these students/employees would wait while not in contact with others.
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This is only for those that came in contact with Covid-19 at school . This means only students/employees identified at school as close contacts from school exposure would have the choice to participate.
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Students/employees must wear a mask at all times through a normal 14 day quarantine.
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Those participating must consent to remain quarantined when NOT at school.
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Data from the pilot program has not been released and only 3 schools participated.
We are not the only school in our area that is being cautious with the decision to join; we are still trying to get answers to decide if we would like to participate in the future. As for now, we are moving forward with the 3 foot contact tracing in hopes that it will make a big difference in keeping our students in school.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at [email protected]
Respectfully,
Reba Holmes