Dear HCPS Families:
There are so many different ways to interpret information in these crazy times of COVID and to help make things as clear as possible we want to provide some further information to help clarify last Friday's closing and the re-opening on Monday. As always, we are so appreciative of your love, support and grace. We hope this information is helpful.
1. Friday was a day in which we needed to close because the number of staff who were out was impacting our ability to safely operate school. We weren't sure at that point when we would have adequate staff back, but we consulted with VDOE and the VDH as we monitored this and all of our relevant health data. We were reassured that our other health data did not suggest a need to close and so we focused on the ability to staff our schools, not knowing yet on Friday morning when that would be.
2. Friday's staff absences were a combination of Covid related quarantines, some positive cases, and also routine staff sick leave requests.
3. The Covid Testing event was not conducted because of those already out on quarantine OR suspected in any way as positive or at risk. Rather, it was a proactive mitigation strategy that VDH initiated in order to allow any staff willing to volunteer to ensure they were not positive, in light of not presenting any symptoms. We will address those cases (if any present) on Monday when we have results. Again, we have no reason to suspect any people tested Friday are positive.
4. Upon review of anticipated staff absences on Monday, the numbers are much better and more realistic for adequately staffing classrooms. This is primarily attributed to less people requesting leave Monday (sick or personal) AND a number of staff who will, after the 3 days this weekend, come back from their required quarantines.
5. In the future, we plan to increase routine testing of staff, as recommended by VDH and CDC as a mitigation strategy. This is a way we can better know any possible asymptomatic cases and lessen possible transmission.
We hope this clears up the misconceptions. Please do not hesitate to contact us with questions. We are doing the very best we can with the information presented to us.