Catawba County Schools issued the following announcement on August 10.
Dear Catawba County Schools families,
Welcome back! We’re excited for the 2021-22 school year. I have five important updates for you regarding:
ParentSquare - Our new consolidated communication tool
COVID-19 - Optional Masks
COVID-19 - Quarantine Procedures
COVID-19 - Rapid Testing & Vaccinations
Next steps
ParentSquare - Our new consolidated communication tool
If you’re getting this message, you are using our new communication tool called ParentSquare. We will use it for all communications coming from my office, your schools, and your teachers.
Why did we change? We held parent focus groups about our communications, and we heard a lot of positive feedback. One area we felt we could improve upon was consolidating our communications into a single tool where parents can choose when they get their school communications and how they get it. We also needed a tool that made it accessible to everyone regardless of their home language. ParentSquare automatically translates for our teachers, principals, and anyone sending a message out.
Another change this year is that we will only be sending out mass phone calls for urgent situations like weather cancelations, delays, emergencies, and other time-sensitive notifications. We want to give our parents and staff across the district the ability to read our messages when they have time to digest it. ParentSquare allows you to choose when and how you get communications from us.
COVID-19 | Optional Face Coverings
On July 26th, our Board of Education voted to make face coverings optional for all staff, students, and visitors on our campuses. Our Board of Education also committed to holding a special called meeting if the COVID-19 data warrants so they can revisit the issue if needed.
With optional masks, we know people have strong beliefs one way or another. I ask everyone - staff, students, and our community - for their mutual respect for everyone’s option to either choose or not to choose to wear a mask. I want to make sure our students and staff feel welcome regardless of their choice. Thank you, in advance, for your cooperation.
Our goal is to have engaging, inspiring, in-person lessons five days a week. We’re excited about this opportunity, and we want to make sure we can deliver on that with our students and staff this school year.
COVID-19 | Quarantine Procedures
There are a few changes to NCDHHS’ quarantine procedures because of different factors, including vaccinations and optional masks.
Our guidance comes from the state of North Carolina in the StrongSchoolsNC Public Health Toolkit that all NC public schools are required to follow. Our Catawba County Public Health department handles all our quarantines. Our school nurses work for the health department. They are the ones who will be quarantining students and staff if there are positive cases and exposures.
The StrongSchoolsNC Public Health Toolkit (page 15) states that anyone who is within 6’ for 15 minutes or more of someone positive for COVID-19 must be quarantined with three exceptions:
If you are fully vaccinated (age 12+) and have no symptoms, you will not have to quarantine.
If you tested positive for COVID-19 within the past 3 months and are fully recovered and do not have symptoms, you will not have to quarantine.
If a face covering was worn “appropriately and consistently” by you and the person with COVID-19, you will not have to quarantine.
Our school nurses will talk to teachers, coaches, and anyone else involved to determine which students and staff were within 6 feet for 15 minutes or more and who was wearing a face covering or not, and if it was worn properly. As you can imagine, these things are complicated, and we appreciate your continued grace and patience as we work through these situations.
I want to thank our public health department and all of our school nurses for all that they have done and continue to do. They are there working hard for your children’s and our staff’s protection, and we look forward to continuing to work with them.
COVID-19 Rapid Testing & Vaccinations
Like last year, we will offer rapid COVID-19 tests to any students who have COVID-19 symptoms, only with their parent’s permission. We also will continue offering rapid testing for our employees with their consent.
New this year, we can offer rapid testing to parents of children who test positive, if they want. Parent testing will take place outside in the parking lot.
We discontinued random testing in athletics.
Also, we will not require vaccinations for any staff or students unless we are required to do so by the state, which I do not anticipate.
Next Steps
Your next correspondence will be from your principals. They will give you more specific information about what they will be doing at their schools, open houses, etc.
Although we have a few obstacles to work through again this year, I am confident that this 2021-22 school year will be magnificent. We’ve got excellent staff who are genuinely excited to get students back in person. We have an excellent community that wants its children to learn in person. And we‘re going to work together to keep our staff and students as safe as possible while learning in-person five days per week.
I want you to know how much I value working in this county and working with your children. It’s a great place to work and learn and live. Thank you, and I look forward to a great 2021-22 school year!
In partnership,
Matt Stover
Superintendent
Original source can be found here.
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