According to the Georgia Department of Public Health's (DPH) recent COVID-19 guidance for schools, districts must expect cases of the virus in communities. Careful studies of international experiences reveal that even when schools carefully coordinate, plan, and prepare, cases will still occur within the community and its schools. Based on this understanding, the Wilkes County School District has created protocols to help school officials consistently respond to reports of confirmed positive cases by quickly isolating and quarantining students as recommended by the Georgia Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
As part of our agreement to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19, we commit to the following actions:
- Isolate confirmed individuals from school for a minimum of 7 days and until symptom-free for at least 24 hours.
- Identify employees and/or students who may have been in close or direct contact with a confirmed positive person and notify those employees and parents of those students. If employees or parents do not receive a call or letter, then the employee or child was not directly exposed or did not have close contact as defined by the Department of Public Health guidelines.
- Quarantine for a minimum of 7 days individuals who have been determined to be in close or direct contact with a confirmed positive person.
Each Friday, the district will post by school on the District webpage the total number of students and school personnel confirmed with positive COVID-19 tests results that week. See the following chart for the latest numbers.