Health and Safety Weekly Update

Welcome to our second weekly newsletter updating you on re-entry planning and Health & Safety topics. First, please note that this report will now be sent out each Tuesday, to better align with State, County and Local health data for the prior week.

IMPORTANT TECHNOLOGY NOTE

We have received reports that some families are having troubles with the school provided technology. Please know that we want to solve any such problems immediately. We are still working through issues, but in the immediate, we want to solve any individual problem with haste. Please submit any problems you are having with the school Chromebook on this form and you will be contacted to arrange to swap the Chromebook for a replacement.

RE-ENTRY UPDATES

We are happy to be on our second day of bringing back some of our students for in-person learning. We are ahead of our preliminary phasing schedule and are ready to bring back more students from Phase 2.2. Yesterday we brought back our first phase of students in some of our K-8 special needs programs. If there has been any doubt about how much our teachers want to be back with their kids, you just need to watch an arrival process at one of the buildings: joy, smiles and feelings of love and care were everywhere. Next week we continue our phasing in of students and bring back more special needs students and open up Constable and Crossroads North.

Over the next few weeks, we will be reaching out to the school community to get some feedback. First, will be a survey to identify the strengths and areas to watch for in the remote learning program. We purposely have waited to survey so as to allow for the newness of the program to wear off and so that all involved can get their bearings and begin to live in the model. After the surveys, we will reboot our forums and use that opportunity to share our findings and, of course, hear from our community live.

HEALTH AND SAFETY UPDATE

We are happy to report that we had our second week of being 100% Covid free. There have been no cases of students or staff with Covid-19 in our school buildings. WAY TO GO SOUTH BRUNSWICK!!!

The one area we still need to make sure we are 100% solid with relates to students coming to school with symptoms of being ill. While we have no cases of Covid, we do have situations where children are being brought to the schools knowingly with symptoms. This cannot happen and will be very problematic if it continues once we grow larger and larger with our in-person population. The best ways to ensure we get back to school and stay back to school is to be vigilant, even excessive, in our decisions to keep sick children home from school. Regardless of Covid, if a child is in a classroom for extended periods of time and symptoms are discovered, it could result in an entire class of students and staff to be placed in quarantine. This not only disrupts the learning, but contributes to families having to make immediate and significant adjustments to their work schedules. As most are still home, please begin monitoring your children for any signs of Covid symptoms and especially for symptoms of loss of taste or smell, shortness of breath and excessive cough and/or any difficulty breathing. Our best protection is vigilance and smart decision making. We are doing amazing thus far as a community so let’s keep up the great work.

Below you will see that our current status has been upgraded to Green. This is great news for us as it adjusts some of the very stringent regulations related to Health & Safety. We are able to now use what we consider more logical approaches to illness and the ability to accept doctor notes to limit time out of school. When we had a designation of Yellow, we were bound to very strict quarantine rules. While we still will be equally vigilant, we are able to adjust, which is better for staff and students while not increasing risk.

Scott

Regional Rating

(Latest Published Results)

Green - Low

https://www.nj.gov/health/cd/documents/topics/NCOV/COVID_19_Report_Week_37.pdf

South Brunswick Health Dept. Rating

Supressed

Number of cases (last 7 days) in South Brunswick

6

One factor which may have led to last week's increase was a connection to students being tested upon returning to college. The Health Department advised us that college students who test positive no matter where they are attending college, may still have their results listed under their hometown.

Number of school age children cases (last 7 days) in South Brunswick

0

Number of students/adults in schools with no cases (Daily Average)

0/514

Athletics Reporting (Daily Average)

475 students and staff

Number of students/staff sent home during the day with symptoms

8

Students were sent home upon arrival and did not enter the fields or school buildings

Number of students not able to follow health and safety directions

0

State Transmission Rate

1.12

https://www.nj.gov/health/cd/documents/topics/NCOV/COVID_19_Report_Week_37.pdf

Regional Positivity Rate (Central East)

2.37

https://www.nj.gov/health/cd/documents/topics/NCOV/COVID_19_Report_Week_37.pdf

Regional Case Rate (Central East)/100,000 residents

3.89

https://www.nj.gov/health/cd/documents/topics/NCOV/COVID_19_Report_Week_37.pdf

What guidance exists at this time.

• Indoor dining allowed 25% capacity, Capacity limits still in place, Fall athletics in operation, all mask and social distancing requirements still in effect

• West Windsor-Plainsboro Middle School Closed for 14 days
• Westfield High School closed for 2 weeks
  

Self-reflection effectiveness rating (1-4)

2

Effective Rating Rubric

We dropped our rating from a 3 to a 2 this week due to some compliance issues related to coming to the buildings with known symptoms. While our protocols worked and no spread or further problems arose, we, as a community, just need to be more vigilant with coming to the schools with symptoms.

Incidents of student or parent non-compliance

3 parents brought students into the RLC exhibiting symptoms. Students were immediately sent home.

Incidents of staff non-compliance

2 Staff came to school with symptoms. Upon entrance staff members were sent home.