A Message from the Superintendent re: Community Health Update

[ Por favor vea este correo electrónico en español ]

Dear MGRSD Community,

I’m writing a follow-up to my email last week regarding sick-absences and recommendation to wear a mask while in school. Absences from school and the prevalence of COVID-19 within our school community have declined this week, which is wonderful! Our original recommendation that all community members wear a mask is expiring today, and we are not renewing that call for action. 

That said, we maintain the following recommendations and rules. All of this follows Massachusetts’ Department of Public Health’s current COVID-19 quarantine and isolation guidelines:

  1. We are requesting that families monitor for common COVID symptoms: fever, cough, shortness of breath, muscle or body aches, headaches, sore throat, congestion or a runny nose, diarrhea or vomiting, or loss of taste or smell. If your student has a fever, diarrhea, or vomiting they should remain home until those symptoms have cleared for at least 24 hours without medication. With any of the listed symptoms, please consider taking an at-home COVID test and/or contacting your physician. Contact your School Nurse or Principal with any positive results or related concerns.

  2. Children and staff who test positive must stay home and isolate for at least 5 days. If they are asymptomatic or symptoms are resolving and they have been fever free without the use of fever-reducing medicine for 24 hours, they may return to programming after Day 5 and must wear a high-quality mask through Day 10 (unless they test negative on Day 5 or later). Please note: “Day 0” is the day that someone tests positive.

  3. Children and staff who are exposed to someone who tests positive for COVID must wear a mask any time they are indoors in public for the 10 days following their exposure.

Thank you for your continued partnership in keeping our community safe and in school. We continue our collaboration with state and local experts and will be in touch if our local situation or the state’s recommendations change in the future.

Sincerely,

Jason McCandless