After thirty weeks of contact tracing and quarantining students exposed to COVID-19, the district recently announced the changes made to the quarantine policy. These changes will no longer cause properly masked students and staff members exposed to a confirmed COVID case to quarantine for two weeks. The district will start to enforce this rule at the start of the sixth six weeks on April 19.
“The delay was to allow more individuals time to become vaccinated, additional time for students to transition to their learning model of choice for the last six weeks, and to watch COVID case data in relation to spring break,” Director of Health Services Cathy Marsh said.
With random surges and declines in COVID cases over the school year, the district took time to study the trends before they made the decision to stop quarantines.
“We watched our county and our MISD data. Both were trending down in positive cases of COVID-19,” Marsh said. “We also sought out other districts utilizing this strategy without a significant increase in cases and we added an additional layer of protection with many of our district employees becoming vaccinated.”
Senior Elisha Odums feels as though the lack of quarantine would help students more as they would not need to switch learning modes.
“After being quarantined twice myself, I know how hard it can be to focus on schoolwork when you are at home,” Odums said. “Maybe after they implement the new protocols, there will be a change in the passing/failing rates.”
