APS taking the fingers crossed approach to reopening
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Anonymous
| FCCPS just announced that it is defining 'fully vaccinated' as having a booster if available to them, but otherwise no need for booster- thus 15 and under are considered fully vaccinated and don't need to quarantine (assuming vaxed) |
Anonymous
How can the card show proof of booster for a 12-15 year old? |
Anonymous
Can you please share where you saw this? I didn't see it on their main site. |
Anonymous
Um, it won’t. Are you not understanding the process for 12-15? If they are a close contact they have to stay home 5 days. Per CDC they are no longer fully vaccinated. APS requires proof of vaccine, not your attestation. |
Anonymous
| Does anyone have a sense of how many teachers and staff are sick with COVID right now? |
Anonymous
He is? He’s been pretty forward in December that things are changing dramatically with schools and COVID, including stupid local mask requirements. He’s been very open that COVID is going to be here for years to come and possibly keeping positive kids in school. Love it! |
Anonymous
it was a letter to parents- I'll cut and paste- 12/29/21 Dear FCCPS Parents and Guardians, As we return to school on January 3rd, we do so still being impacted by COVID–particularly the highly contagious Omicron variant. We had all hoped for something different upon the new year, right now that is not our reality. Unfortunately, the omicron variant is driving high numbers of cases in our schools, our community, Virginia, and our nation. We are going to keep our doors open on January 3rd. Part of the reason we are able to do that is because of your commitment to vaccinations, so thank you! Please be patient and flexible, as we are experiencing breakthrough cases with this highly contagious variant. When we reopen our doors after winter break there are some pieces as a school community we want to make sure we have in place. We will focus on mitigating the transmission of COVID; effective testing/contact tracing when we have cases, and supporting instructional continuity so teaching and learning continues. MITIGATION: During the first few weeks upon our return, we will see high rates of COVID cases in both staff and students. We are prepared and no one does a better job than our FCCPS community when it comes to mitigation! So let’s be vigilant in our mitigation efforts when we return and support our ability to maintain a healthy environment for all. Conduct the Daily Health Screening each morning before coming to school. DO NOT SEND YOUR STUDENT TO SCHOOL IF THEY HAVE SYMPTOMS OF ANY KIND and contact your healthcare provider. Make sure your student wears their mask all the time when around others outside of your home. Wash/Sanitize hands frequently. Don’t attend large gatherings. Increased cleaning protocols will be continued by our custodial staff. We will also continue to have students eat outside as often as possible. Consider driving/walking/biking your child to school to reduce exposure on the bus. If our Transportation staff is impacted by Covid, we will implement double runs and will notify parents. Follow the CDC guidelines for travel and consider getting tested prior to returning to school. US Citizens, US Nationals, US Lawful Permanent Residents, and Immigrants: Travel to and from the United States | CDC TESTING & CONTACT TRACING: BinaxNow tests from the Virginia Department of Health are deployed in schools to support diagnostic testing for symptomatic students. (These are reserved for symptomatic students and staff in order to support their return to school, and are not for asymptomatic testing or returning from travel.) Prior to returning to school, testing is strongly recommended. The Fairfax Health Department website recommends: Contacting your healthcare provider. Call a clinic (urgent care center) or retail providers such as a pharmacy or grocery Find more testing sites using this VDH tool to search for a testing site in Virginia near you. Purchase a home test kit if available. Reach out to the FCHD for support. Call the call center at 703-324-7404 to schedule a testing appointment. ViSSTA PCR Screening tests will continue to be conducted beginning January 6th. Please register to access the testing at any time. Contact John Brett (jwbrett@fccps.org) and/or Angela Atwater (aatwater@fccps.org) if you need support registering. FCCPS COVID Screening Test Permission Form (ViSSTA PCR tests are open to any student in FCCPS.) Your student must be registered in advance and verified to participate in this process. An additional full-time RN will be in place in FCCPS for the rest of the school year to help support testing and contact tracing, in addition to supporting schools with other health services. Please continue to report any COVID positive results. (All health information is treated with the utmost confidentiality and respect.) Answer the call/email. It is critical that everyone answer the calls/emails from their school’s COVID Response Teams and the Health Department. Any student who is fully vaccinated and does not have symptoms will not have to be paused/quarantined when exposed to a positive case as long as they are not symptomatic. Upload your student’s most recent vaccination record to our new system at the following link – FCCPS Vaccination Card Repository. Review the chart below to remain informed about the COVID processes that were updated by the revised CDC on 12/27/2021. CONTINUITY OF TEACHING & LEARNING: All of the previous strategies are in place to protect the health and safety of our staff, students, and their families AND to help ensure instruction continues despite a rise in cases. Our schools are also preparing for the impact of higher cases on instruction. Please help your student to prepare to stream and participate virtually in their classes should the need arise. Students will be asked to take their technology home each day. Please have it charged and with your student as they attend school each day. Due to COVID, your child could be at school learning while their teacher is providing instruction from home. All impacted classrooms and learning spaces will be monitored by FCCPS staff at all times. It is our responsibility to ensure we have protective measures in place to help keep everyone as safe as possible. We can’t do this without your help and support. The decisions we make in our personal lives have an impact on those around us (and their families) in the school setting, especially during times of high transmission. Be responsible, keep your students home when they have symptoms, get them vaccinated/boosted when available, and register them for our ViSSTA testing program. It is our collective commitment to remain open during these times because our students need us to be able to provide in-person learning. We need families to keep their children home when they are not well. Sending sick students to school jeopardizes our ability to remain open. We have learned so much over the last 20 months and we will respond accordingly. There is no sugar coating or getting around it…case rates are high and the road ahead will be challenging at times. Thankfully, we have high vaccination rates in the City of Falls Church among employees and students. Our COVID Response Teams are highly trained and have navigated numerous COVID cases among students and staff, and we have our collective wisdom to lean on as we embark on 2022. While Omicron is proving to be a milder variant for the vaccinated and resolves quicker despite it being highly contagious, we will continue to be vigilant in our mitigation efforts and practices to combat the spread in FCCPS. We will continue to lean on our community and each other to get through this next hurdle as we welcome our students back on January 3rd. Until then, continue to remain safe and take good care! – FCCPS Leadership Team |
Anonymous
42 in the past 7 days https://apsva.co1.qualtrics.com/public-dashboard/v0/dashboard/60d5f170495a0000108b9941#/dashboard/60d5f170495a0000108b9941?pageId=Page_6460cdc2-d8ad-4c57-9c4d-d2b2b1cac0c6 |
Anonymous
| I think the chart, which is the significant part, is falling out b/c its an image- I'm trying to figure out how to post it. |
Anonymous
|
oh, the FCCPS letter is on the website- that will work better- here's the link
https://www.fccps.org/article/616232 |
Anonymous
Whereas student 71 in past 7 days. https://apsva.co1.qualtrics.com/public-dashboard/v0/dashboard/60d5f170495a0000108b9941#/dashboard/60d5f170495a0000108b9941?pageId=Page_c7dbca22-0199-45ae-94fa-a01dbf2296ee |
Anonymous
Thank you. That is so much more reasonable than the approach APS is taking. |
Anonymous
Good luck with that. APS is following CDC. Go take it up with the CDC. They could solve this problem by authorizing boosters for this age group. |
Anonymous
The CDC has not actually provided any clarification on that topic. Their message implies that boosters are possible, yet they aren't. I think they were just right before six months when they made that announcement -- when it was being voted on, the 12-15s weren't six months out yet. |
Anonymous
Actually, given this is an anonymous forum, I don't think it is. I think the approach FCCPS is taking has everything to do with their sanctimonous pronouncements over the last several months that they would not change the 14 day quarantine with no possibility to test out that they freely imposed on young children, b/c 'we need people to get vaccinated' and 'our way out of this is vaccination,' and their absolute refusal to go anywhere near test to stay b/c it might discourage 'vaccination.' The self-righteous superintendent whenever anyone challenged him on why he was keeping healthy kids out of school, even who had negative PCR tests would respond with 'b/c we need to encourage vaccination.' He promised multiple times in numerous forums that vaccinated kids would not have to quarantine. Well- the reality is the vaccinated are likely to spread covid, much much more likely that those 6 year olds who were 'contacts' and had negative PCR tests. The CDC acknowledges this in their recent guidance, which is why the 12-15 year olds have to quarantine. I personally think it is totally reasonable to jettison quarantine all together for contacts. Or to adopt test to stay. But when you are not willing to do either of those- from a transmission perspective, exempting people who have been vaccinated more than 6 months ago from quarantine doesn't make sense. |