Dear Upper Arlington families,
I hope it’s been a great week for all of our families in hybrid learning and the Online Academy.
Click here to watch my video update on the work with our Medical Advisory Team, and check out the rest of my email for other important updates.
Medical Advisory Team
As I have shared in recent weeks, we’re partnering with OSU’s College of Public Health in a pilot project to have COVID-related health data specific to our school district’s attendance area. In addition, we’re working with our Medical Advisory Team - which is made up of experts in the areas of public health and infectious disease - to interpret that data and determine when it might be safe to move our students on the school-based pathway to a full five-day-a-week model.
The Medical Advisory Team met twice this week to continue its discussions. While they’re still developing a full framework, it has become clear that one very important indicator will be our community’s case rate per 100,000. This number is one of the many data points provided by the COVID-19 Analytics and Targeted Surveillance (CATS) program. It’s displayed on our COVID-19 data dashboard and updated each Friday. This week’s number is 78 per 100,000, which is up a bit from last week’s number of 63 per 100,000.
The advisory team continues to discuss exactly where this case rate number needs to be and for how long, but it seems likely that they will want to see four to six weeks of data to inform any recommendation to move to our five-day plan.
The team also continues to discuss what other data points will be used in their framework, and how those may impact how long our case rate would have to be at or below the eventual target number.
As the team progresses in its work, I will continue to share updates with you. It’s been fascinating to listen in on their discussions, and I’m honored that individuals with such a high level of expertise are using their time to help us meet the goal of our Responsible Restart Plan, which is to return to a five-day-a-week model as soon as it is safe to do so.
COVID-19 data dashboard
You can find all of this week’s updated health data on our COVID-19 data dashboard.
Student attendance and COVID-19 protocols
If you have school-related COVID-19 questions, please click here to view our FAQ and click here to view the in-person participation decision tree for students from public health officials. You can also reach out to COVID Nurse Coordinator Gina Rancitelli at [email protected].
That does it for this week’s update. I hope you and your family have a great weekend, and as always, go Bears!
Sincerely,
Paul Imhoff, Ed.D.
Superintendent, Upper Arlington Schools