Dear Creative Minds Community:
I’m writing to inform you that an additional case of COVID-19 has been identified in our community. The individual who tested positive for COVID-19 was last in the school building on September 7.
Two cases have now occurred in the same cohort, or grade level, within one week. Because of this, we have quarantined all students in the affected grade, as well as siblings who are also Creative Minds students. We shared the first case with you in our email of September 2.
Another factor in our decision was the possibility of there being contacts in other classes at this grade level. Our immediate, cautious approach allows us time for thorough contact tracing and helps to prevent any spread of COVID-19 throughout the school.
We have begun the process of contact tracing, with a focus on meal and snack times, when students are likely to have removed their masks. Through this process, we will also investigate whether any breaches of COVID protocols occurred and, if so, how to prevent their reoccurrence.
Our primary goal in tracing is to determine who is a close contact. A close contact occurs when a person is within three to six feet of a COVID-positive individual for longer than 15 minutes and is not consistently wearing a well-fitting mask.
If tracing reveals that students in quarantine are not close contacts, they may return to school; we are aiming for this to happen early next week. All families of quarantined students will be notified about whether their children are close contacts.
Students in quarantine will learn remotely while they are at home. Our directors of middle school and lower school are sending instructions to these families.
We are thoroughly disinfecting the spaces occupied by the students in the affected grade level. The building-wide disinfection, with electrostatic spraying, that occurs every Friday will proceed as usual on the evening of September 10.
The community members who tested positive for COVID-19 will be cleared to return to school after meeting one of these criteria:
- If experiencing no COVID-19 symptoms: quarantine for 10 days from the date of the positive test; at the end of the quarantine, have no COVID-19 symptoms for 24 hours without medication.
- If experiencing symptoms of COVID-19: self-isolate for at least 10 days after symptom onset and then be symptom free for 24 hours without medication.
The other community members will be cleared to return to school after meeting one of these criteria:
- Testing negative for COVID-19 at least seven days after their contact with the affected individual; a PCR, not a rapid, test is required.
- Quarantining for 10 days, without symptoms of COVID-19.
- They are not a close contact, as per our contact tracing.
The daily health screening, which must be performed before coming to campus each day, is the best way to determine whether to keep your child home from school. If you have not already done so, please download the CMI Screening app for Android or iOS.
These are the COVID-like symptoms that require a child to be kept home from school:
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