School district adopts CDC guidance on COVID exposures

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BY CHUCK VANDENBERG
PCC EDITOR

FORT MADISON - The Fort Madison school district has adopted new guidance for dealing with exposures to the coronavirus.

At Monday's Fort Madison School Board meeting, the board voted 5-2 to adopt recommendations from the Lee County Health Department, Centers for Disease Control, and the Iowa Department of Public Health to move to a 5-day quarantine instead of a 10-day for those that have no symptoms and are vaccinated.

Under new guidelines, if students or staff are exposed to someone with COVID and do not have symptoms and are not vaccinated they can quarantine for just five days. They then must wear a mask when around others in school facilities for the next five days.

The recommendation also encourages a test at five days.

If staff or students are exposed and are vaccinated and boosted, no quarantine is needed, but strict mask usage is recommended for at least 10 days with a test encouraged at five days.

If students or staff test positive for COVID they are recommended to isolate for five days with day 0 being the first day symptoms are noticed.

If symptoms are still present after five days or a fever is still present without medication then isolation is recommended for another five days. If symptoms are reduced and no fever is present then the isolation can end with masking for another five days.

School board member Mio Santiago, who was the only board member wearing a mask at the meeting, said none of the recommendations carry any teeth and without mandates the district has little control over the situation.

"These are just recommendations," Santiago said. "So there's not a whole lot we can do."

Board president Dianne Hope agreed saying there was no mandate on the protocols and the district had to approach the situation in generalized terms.

Board members Paul Wilkerson and Dianne Hope voted against the measure.

FMCSD Superintendent Dr. Erin Slater said the district is seeing heavy absenteeism right now, but she said some of that is Influenza A and "a stomach bug" that is going around. She said multiple buildings are experiencing absentee rates over 10% and those days have to be reported to the state.

Lee County Health Department Administrator Michele Ross said Monday that the county had a positivity rate for reported tests at 17.9% over the past seven days.

In other action, the board approved another year of a program called "Let's Talk" that gives students and staff access to a telehealth platform for mental health services. The program costs the district $29,488 per year to host the platform.

The service also charges individual users for the service. Director of Student Services Kim Harmon said the individuals that use the service are billed through their health insurance company.

Board member Brad Menke asked what happens when students or staff don't have viable insurance coverage.

Harmon said the district doesn't have a pool of money to help with those situations, but it's something she'd like to see addressed. She said the district hasn't had anyone approach them to use the service that wasn't covered, but she said that situation probably does exist in the district.

Harmon said the district was having trouble identifying someone local to provide the service, so the district went with the telehealth system to make sure there was assistance available to students and staff.

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