RTL: Health & Safety
On-Campus Screening Protocols
Under Plan A (updated 3/24/21):
All staff, students, and visitors accessing a Henderson County Public Schools building/facility will be screened at the building/facility main entrance. Any person who answers YES to any one of the screening questions listed and/or has a temperature above 100.4 will be denied entry into the building/facility.
Temperature checks will be required of all individuals entering our school buses and campuses. Individuals will have their temperatures checked at the touchless kiosks at the entrances to school and district buildings.
Bus drivers and any staff riding school buses will have their temperature checked on campus, before ever boarding their bus to pick up students. Students will board the bus like normal, wearing face coverings, and have their temperature checked once they arrive at school, before entering the building.
Individuals who present symptoms at school will be sent home, with directions from public health officials. School nurses will be using the steps on the NCDHHS flow chart included in the StrongSchoolsNC Public Health Toolkit (pg. 22) to screen individuals for COVID-19 symptoms.
If individuals with symptoms are unable to leave the school immediately, they will be monitored away from others in a privacy room until they are able to be picked up. Each school will have an area for isolation, as well as an area for nurses to provide routine care. School nurses have worked with individual principals to establish these areas, based on the logistics of each school.
When there is a positive COVID-19 case in a school, HCPS will send a SwiftK12 call to all families in that school and the district will continue updating the COVID District Dashboard with school-affected positives. The Henderson County Department of Public Health is responsible for conducting contact tracing. Both the health department and HCPS will provide as transparent reporting as possible while still protecting confidentiality.
The health department will contact parents/guardians directly if their child is identified as having had close contact with a positive COVID case. The school district will not provide personally identifiable information of an infected person.
Families can reference this document in English and Spanish for more details on “What to Expect When There is a COVID-19 Case in a School.”
Face Coverings
UNDER PLAN A (UPDATED 3/24/21):
Per the N.C. Department of Health & Human Services guidelines, face coverings are required for everyone in our schools and on our buses – including students (K-12), staff, and any visitors to campus, unless an eligible exception applies.
Students are required to wear face coverings on all school buses and campuses. If a student does not have a face covering of their own, one will be provided to them by the school or bus driver.
Face coverings are also required for anyone attending an outdoors HCPS athletic activity.
Social Distancing
UNDER PLAN A (UPDATED 3/24/21):
Six feet of social distancing is not possible or required under Plan A, but HCPS is following the N.C. Department of Health & Human Services guidelines for “minimal social distancing.”
This includes encouraging physical distancing among students and staff, spaced seating, marking 6 feet of spacing in high traffic areas, one-way directions in hallways where necessary, and fewer people in the building.
This means non-essential visitors and activities involving outside groups and organizations will also be limited, and activities that involve bringing together large groups of people (like assemblies, performances and field trips) are discontinued until further notice.
Cleaning & Hygiene
School and district staff will follow prescribed cleaning and disinfecting recommendations. Teachers and other school staff will be encouraging increased handwashing and proper sneezing hygiene, and hand sanitizers will be available in each classroom.
Outdoor Athletic Attendance
Eased restrictions under the Governor’s Executive Order 195 have increased the capacity limits at our outdoor athletic facilities, but we remind our families that important guidelines are still in place to prevent community spread of COVID-19 as we slowly return to a sense of normalcy.
Families should follow these guidelines when attending athletic events at outdoor HCPS facilities, and can expect on-campus signage reminding them of the following:
- Only members of the same household may sit together.
- Please sit six feet apart from other household groups.
- Face coverings are required.
