What you need to know about contact tracing, isolating, quarantining, and classroom or school closures

Our goal is to keep students in schools, learning in person, as long as it is safe to do so. To achieve this, we use a layered mitigation strategy, starting with the two most powerful strategies: Vaccinations and masking.

When we layer in physical distancing, symptom screening, handwashing, covering sneezes and coughs, and cleaning, we have a very strong strategy for eliminating the spread of COVID-19.

Important Updates and Clarifications on Contact Tracing

1/12/22

1/12/22

Contact tracing and positive case notification

With positive COVID-19 case counts at unprecedented levels affecting all of us, our health services staff have needed to prioritize their work in order to stay ahead of an increased demand for services. As a result, they will be shifting from tracing contacts of positive cases to contacting only individuals who test positive and their high-risk close contacts (household members). In order to prioritize those who have tested positive during this surge in cases, we cannot feasibly maintain the staff resources required to maintain the level of contact tracing the district has been providing.

As a part of this shift, schools will no longer be issuing emails, texts, or phone calls to close contacts, nor providing school-wide notifications of positive cases at their school. In order to stay informed on the number of positive cases in MMSD, we encourage visiting the district’s public case count dashboard, which is updated weekly. MMSD data shows there is very low spread of COVID-19 in Madison schools due to rigorous and layered mitigation strategies, and MMSD is one of only a few school districts in Wisconsin who, at any point during the pandemic, provided this high level of contact tracing, far exceeding requirements for schools.

If you have Symptoms…

If you have Tested Positive…

TestedPositive.pdf

TestedPositiveSpanish.pdf

TestedPositiveHmong.pdf

When someone tests positive

When a member of a school community does test positive for COVID-19, we take immediate action to ensure they are sent home.

Isolating

If a student or staff member tests positive they are directed to immediately isolate and complete the symptom screener alerting the health office of their diagnosis.

Confirmed Close Contact…

CloseContact.pdf

CloseContactSpanish.pdf

CloseContactHmong2.pdf

Individuals who have been within 6 feet of another individual who is COVID-19 positive for a time period exceeding 15 minutes within 24 hours is considered a close contact. Anyone who has direct physical contact, for any length of time, with a COVID-19 positive person will also be considered a close contact.

Exception: In the K–12 indoor classroom setting, the close contact definition excludes students who were within 3 to 6 feet of an infected student (laboratory-confirmed or a clinically compatible illness) if both the infected student and the exposed student(s) correctly and consistently wore well-fitting masks the entire time.

What Happens When We Close a Classroom

How do we determine closing a school, multiple schools or the district

How do we determine closing a school, multiple schools or the district

We certainly hope we never have to close an entire school or all district buildings, but we do have decision-making guidelines to rely on if that time ever comes.

We know and appreciate it would be helpful to communicate definitive thresholds at which we would close a school building or multiple buildings. But the reality is that there are numerous variables and nuances involved.

Ultimately, the determination would be made by a team, in consultation with medical experts, after monitoring relevant information. Examples include:

Orders from Wisconsin Department of Health Services or Public Health Madison & Dane County
The active number of COVID-19 cases locally
The active number of COVID-19 cases within an individual school building or across the District
Rate of transmission within a building or across the District
The number of staff absences
Substitute teacher availability
The need for school-wide disinfection
Community hospitalization rate
The district’s ability to do contact tracing
The number of active quarantines
Other metrics

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