Nightly News for January 18th

•  Several of you reached out to make sure this was shared with staff. This is a link to request COVID test kits. I sent in for mine! 

https://special.usps.com/testkits

• I failed to put this in the Weekly Forecast, but SUN does not begin until the 24th. They have delayed by a week.
• We want to welcome Justin from Security Services for the week. He is visiting us from George Middle School while they are in TDL. We hope to have our new hire in place very soon.
• On that note we are getting a lot of support from the district office in regards to substitutes and unfilled positions. This has been very helpful. Today, I even sent someone home and let the district know to send another person to a building. Things are looking positive for tomorrow. 
• We were at 69% attendance today (this is the eyeball count we have been doing). Things may be a bit different in Synergy. I am reporting this information daily to my supervisors. We had many students who were able to return today so this increased our attendance. 
• There was a lot of activity in the office this morning. We are kind of running under two different systems. Students/staff who were out before the 11th fell under the old guidelines and those after the 11th fall under the new ones. We are working to align, double check and ensure that we have followed protocols. It is highly confusing and I found myself sitting down several times today with a note card, calendar, pencil and information to determine reentry dates. Dates don't simply go by a positive test date,  "For those with any symptoms of illness, day 0 is the day they first experienced symptoms." Five days of isolation will end once they have been fever free for 24 hours (without medication) and other symptoms have improved. THIS IS very confusing and we are all trying to wrap our heads around our some things that are almost a complete about face. I am not saying I agree with this. We have spent COUNTLESS hours tracking, tracing and trying to get ahead of things only to surrender a bit. I say this to let you know we will do our best to continue to ensure safety. In some situations, we may not like what the new guidelines are, but they are district protocols and we need to follow them. On that note, I will do my best to ensure staff are aware of potential positive exposure. Please ask me directly if you have any questions.