Dear Hopewell Families,
As we prepare for the start of the school year on Monday, we want to provide some updates related to COVID. Currently, the level of COVID in Hopewell is designated as "high" by health officials. While fortunately the current strain is not as severe as previous strains of the virus, there is an increased risk for contracting COVID. Therefore, please be aware of these important reminders and updates for our K-12 students:
- While masks are a choice, we do highly recommend that all individuals consider wearing them indoors when in crowded settings, particularly when the level of COVID in the community is at this high level.
- Students should stay home if they are experiencing COVID-like symptoms (especially if the symptoms are new or unusual). Students who come to school and are displaying symptoms will be sent to the nurse and in many cases will be sent home.
- Health officials continue to stress the importance of being vaccinated, particularly to lessen the severity of the virus.
- While we are no longer conducting contact tracing when there is a positive case, we do need to be informed immediately of a positive case. Please contact your school's nurse if this occurs and we will work with you on when it will be safe to return to school. We are continuing to track positive cases and if we have multiple linked cases to a classroom or similar setting, we will then notify those families whose children are in that setting and, in consultation with VDH, may take additional precautions. We also will maintain the COVID case dashboard on our website so that individuals can be aware of current/recent cases as we are informed.
- We plan to resume the drive-through COVID PCR testing for students as school resumes. For now, the drive-thru tests will occur at the front of the high school from 3:30 to 5:00pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The links to be registered for testing are noted below. Students just need to be registered one time for the school where they attend.
We are moving forward in this new phase of COVID with resuming as many "normal" activities as possible, but we just urge attention to the reminders above. As communicated to families who were virtual last spring, we are no longer offering the general virtual option, but if your child has critical health issues, please reach out to us at 804-541-6400 and we will work with you on options as we do whenever there are serious health concerns.
(For families of students at Woodlawn, please note that federal Head Start requirements regarding COVID are still in place and those override any state or local guidelines.)