Good Afternoon Parents,
By now I am sure rumors have been flying regarding possible positive COVID-19 cases at the Dolores Secondary and the possibility of quarantines. The situation has been evolving all day and I want to take a few minutes to provide you with an update.
While there are not any positive cases of COVID-19 amongst our Secondary staff and students that require us to quarantine anyone according to the Montezuma County Health Department’s guidelines, there have been positive cases identified within our district that have resulted in the quarantine of Elementary and Pre-School classes and the riders of the Horse Bus.
I spent time this morning contact tracing and was preparing to make a list of students who would need to be quarantined when I was contacted by the District Nurse and informed that one of the individuals that we were previously told was positive for COVID was a false positive. The health department had initially contacted the individual and told them that they were positive, but later today the individual was contacted a second time and was notified that the test had been “misread” and that the test results were, in fact, negative. As a result, at this time no middle and high school students, except for those that rode the Horse Bus on Thursday (morning or afternoon), will have to quarantine, and no person who has been vaccinated for COVID will have to quarantine.
Students who ride the Horse Bus who have been vaccinated or who were not on the bus on Thursday will not have to quarantine. However, because the driver of the bus is among those who are quarantined and we are short bus drivers to begin with we will not be able to operate this bus route for the rest of this week. Parents will need to find alternative transportation this week.
As a result of this public health investigation:
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The people who have tested positive for COVID-19 are being kept home from school until they are no longer infectious.
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The individuals who were “close contacts” of the person(s) with COVID-19 have been instructed to stay home from school, watch for symptoms, and quarantine for 10 days from the date of their last exposure.
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Our buildings are being sanitized with special attention to the exposed areas.
Please watch for symptoms in your children daily and remember to adhere to daily symptom checks prior to coming to school. Please call our District Nurse with any questions. As a reminder, the symptom checklist includes the following: