B-A school board updates health and safety plan
Public Domain Image
Tuesday night’s school board meeting saw a change to the district’s previous COVID-19 health and safety plan.
The new plan changes isolation and quarantine measures. When a student tests positive, contact tracing will stay the same by notifying those within six feet for a consecutive 15 minutes. If a student qualifies as “close contact”, they will be required to wear a mask as opposed to a quarantine under the last plan. For students who test positive, they must quarantine for five days and wear a mask for another five days after returning to school.
Under the previous plan, students who were considered “close contact” were required to quarantine. The new plan focuses on keeping students who are healthy in school as much as possible while also keeping other students safe.
When asked about the updated plan, high school principal Mr. Richard Schreier told the Altoona Mirror, “I am a proponent of this plan to keep kids in school.”
The updated policy aims to keep non-positive students in school as much as possible while creating a safe environment.
The school board’s actions are in response to the recent rise of COVID-19 cases around the country. Over the past week, Blair County has had 1,353 new cases of COVID-19. Health officials say the spike of cases are due to the new variant of COVID, Omicron.
