December 3, 2020

Dear MASD Families & Staff,

 

As our return from the Thanksgiving break continues, we wish to make you aware of a number of additional positive COVID-19 cases within our district.  It is important to note that in most of these cases, the positive individuals were not physically present within school during their infectious period (time beginning 48 hours prior to their onset of symptoms).  This is largely due to all schools being closed from November 25^th-30^th and the middle school being in a full-remote phase from November 17^th-30^th.  While these cases did not put our students or staff at risk, we want to notify you of their occurrence.   

 

Positives Requiring School Contact Tracing		Positives Not in School During Infectious Period
Facilities Staff		3 MASH Students
2 Broad Street Students		2 MMS Students
Upper Allen Staff		Kindergarten Academy Staff

 

District administration is in communication with the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) and is coordinating all actions in accordance with their guidance as well as protocols established within the District’s Health & Safety Plan and the PA Dept of Education’s “Recommendations for Pre-K to 12 Schools Following Identification of a Case(s) of COVID-19”. 

 

Through collaborative contact tracing, the District and DOH identified any individuals “exposed” to the persons infected.  Those identified as “exposed” have been notified directly by the District and will quarantine as a result of the close contact.  As a reminder, “Exposed” is defined as anyone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting from 48 hours before the person began feeling sick until the time the patient began isolating. 

 

The District remains in contact with the families and sends well wishes to our impacted Wildcats! 

 

From a building perspective, each of the schools impacted will remain open at this time and students will continue in their current model of learning. 

 

We are thankful to our families for being careful to keep symptomatic children at home.  Please visit our website (www.mbgsd.org) for more information regarding Health Monitoring (click on “2020-2021 MASD Program & Health Monitoring Information”).  There, you can also review a “Health Monitoring Dashboard” to review active cases within our district.

 

We will continue to closely monitor each case and will provide follow-up communication should any updates be necessary.  We cannot thank you enough for your continued support and understanding. 

 

Yours in Education,

  

Mark K. Leidy, Ed. D.

Superintendent of Schools

Mechanicsburg Area School District