Health & Safety Protocol Parent Update and Review

Ocotber 6, 2021

We are happy to report that the Lancaster ISD Health Services Team has seen a consistent decline in active COVID-19 cases within our district for the past three weeks. We attribute this decline to the collective effort by everyone to follow our district's health and safety protocols established at the beginning of this school year. We will continue to enforce our district-wide mask mandate and maintain our schools' current health and safety protocols.

Additionally, we are consistently reviewing guidance from the Texas Department of State Health Services, Dallas County Health Department, Texas Education Agency, and the Centers for Disease Control for several things regarding COVID-19, including the duration of required in-home close contact quarantine days. Based on all three entities' current health and safety recommendations and our district's downward trend in active COVID-19 cases, we have made the decision to amend our district's health and safety protocols to allow shorter quarantine durations for in-home close contacts. Per these new health and safety protocols, students directly exposed to an in-home, close contact, positive COVID-19 case would be under a 14-day quarantine, ten days less than the previous 24-day requirement. Under this quarantine duration period, students will return to school on the 15th day, provided they have no COVID-19 symptoms and have not tested positive for COVID-19. Due to shortening of the quarantine days, we request that your child have a negative COVID-19 test result prior to returning to campus.

Fully vaccinated students who enter into close proximity to someone with an active case of COVID-19 and exhibit no COVID-19 symptoms would not be required to quarantine. However, partially or unvaccinated students who enter into close proximity to someone with an active case of COVID-19 will quarantine for 14 days. If your child is vaccinated, please make sure their vaccination card is uploaded to their student file on the parent portal. Parents may also email the vaccination card to their child’s campus nurse. Due to shortening of the quarantine days, we request that your child have a negative COVID-19 test result prior to returning to campus.

Although we are making minor adjustments to our required quarantine duration, other COVID-19 health and safety protocols such as close contact tracing, health screening, reporting, and quarantining in certain circumstances will remain in place for individuals directly exposed to an individual diagnosed with COVID-19. We also recommend individuals get vaccinated as soon as possible.

A decision to amend health and safety protocols is based on the number of active cases within our district and the current impact of COVID-19 within our district. Therefore, they are subject to change at any time. If there are any additional changes to the Operation Safe Tiger Return Reopening plan, we will directly communicate that information to our families.

We thank each family for doing their best to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Thank you for working together to ensure that our schools are as safe as possible for all. I ask that each of you remain diligent in monitoring your family's symptoms so that we can continue our downward trend of positive COVID-19 cases within our district.

If you were unable to join the virtual the parent meeting, please click HERE to view the video of the meeting.

Lancaster Independent School District

COVID-19

Health Services Updates