Waco Reporter

Blooming Grove ISD issued the following announcement.

Thanksgiving is coming and with it is a real concern that there will be an increase in COVID cases in the weeks that will follow. To help prevent the spread of COVID over the holiday break, we encourage you to take advantage of our free COVID testing this week before the holiday break for students who are showing any of the COVID symptoms.

Thanksgiving is coming and with it is a real concern that there will be an increase in COVID

cases in the weeks that will follow. To help prevent the spread of COVID over the holiday break,

we encourage you to take advantage of our free COVID testing this week before the holiday

break for students who are showing any of the COVID symptoms. The COVID testing program

in Blooming Grove is available because of the support of Governor Abbot. With him driving the

initiative, and the efforts of the Commissioner of Education, we were able to bring this program

to our community. Though it is optional, I enrolled our district in the program as a support for our

parents and community. Unlike the long lines people have faced at the health centers, we can

test someone with almost no wait at all…and have results in 15 minutes.

Below are COVID symptoms. If your child is exhibiting these, please contact Mrs. Bailey at 903-

695-2541 x 3019 to set a time to have your child tested. The more you know heading into the

holiday, the safer you and your family will be.

fever sore throat

loss of taste/smell congestion

cough shaking

difficulty breathing significant muscle pain

fatigue diarrhea

headache nausea/vomiting

chills

As always, if you have a student who is positive or quarantined, please keep them home and

away from others.

As a school district, we can control what happens until about 4:00 pm. Once students go home,

we hope they are following the CDC guidelines, practicing social distancing, and staying away

from others - particularly if they are COVID positive or exposed to someone who is positive.

Contact Tracing: I wanted to take a moment to explain what we do when we are notified of a

COVID positive student and have to do a contact trace. We look to see the times when students

are within six feet of each other for 15 minutes or more. Here are some of the ways we do that:

 We look to see who they eat breakfast and lunch with as that is when they are most at

risk.

 We identify who they sit with in each of their classes.

 We talk to teachers to see how consistent the students are about wearing masks. If a

student is repeatedly told to pull their mask up, and they were near the positive student,

that student will be quarantined.

 We look at every class and opportunity where they may be without a mask – such as

athletics.

 We identify who they have been with and for how long they were inside six feet distance.

 We find out who they sit next to on the bus.

 At the elementary, we even look to see who they are lined up with waiting in the car rider

line.

Once we have the information, we contact the Health Department to determine which of our

students and staff may need to quarantine.

We do all of this to help stop the exposure in an effort to keep our students, staff, and your

family as safe as possible.

Quarantine Length: Quarantine can be more than 14 days. Here is how that can (and is)

happening. Example… a student is home on quarantine because they went to a family birthday

party where a relative soon after tested positive. Four days into the quarantine, their mother

tests positive for COVID. The mother is then homebound for 10 days to recover. Since the child

lives in the same house and is now exposed to a new COVID positive person, their new 14-day

quarantine will not begin until after their parent is recovered (after 10 days). So, in this situation,

the child was 4 days under the first quarantine, 10 days with a recovering parent, and a new 14-

day quarantine…for a total of 28 days. This is the guidance from the CDC and shows the real

length of quarantine for multiple exposures to COVID.

Again, we ask that you monitor your children for symptoms each day before they come to

school. If they are sick, please keep them home.

The best place for our children to learn is in our schools and we are doing everything we can to

keep them open for your children. We are asking that everyone practice the Governor’s social

distancing guidelines so we can slow the spread of the virus.

As always, if you have any questions, please contact your child’s school and ask to speak with

the principal.

Sincerely,

Rick Hartley, Superintendent

Original source can be found here.